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Full Character Name: Dalyrn Daedelus Deschaine
Character Birthday & Age: March 21st, 1994
City & Country of Birth: Cardiff, Wales, Great Britian
Pureblood, Halfblood or Muggleborn: Halfblood
House & Year: Ravenclaw; 5th

Wand: Dalyrn Deschaine's wand

Wandwood: Baobab
Magic Core: Nundu Whisker
Legnth: Approx 13 inches total. Handle is approx 6 inches long.
Strength: Inflexible
Notable details:
The handle is carved into  a leaping Nundu, with the base end being the cat's snarling mouth. The miniscule fangs are still sharp, and can cause damage. The wand itself has no varnish, no finishing, and looks rough as if it were recently hewn from a tree. The core's properties keep it from degrading.
Unique properties:
In keeping with the properties of the Nundu, it is possible to be stealthy with magic using this. Spells cast somehow give off less light than ordinary.
(Eventually, this may be used to cast nonvisible spells, but at this point in time he's not capable of that level of focus on the wand.)


Made for him at the age of 6, during the brief period he lived in South Africa, when his mother had a job researching indigenous magical cultures, and his father was out of work. It was made for him by a tribal shaman after, completely by accident, distracting a wounded Nundu with an outburst of juvenile magic, which allowed one of the tribesmen to deal a killing blow to the beast. The beast would have otherwise destroyed the isolated settlement. The wand was crafted using one of the Nundu's whiskers.

(For details of the Nundu, please see page 31 of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them)

Physical Description: Dalyrn is exactly six feet tall and has dirty blond hair, and more than a few tattoos. He's muscular while still being slender, and has a sort of hard edge to his appearance. He's beautiful though, with his hair sideswept just right to cover up his left eye and the skin around there, apparently scraggly beard that comes in after a few days of forgetting to shave. His left eye, and patches of skin on the upper left side of his face are completely devoid of pigment, giving those few bits of skin an unnaturally pale look, and making the eye red. It has a sinister look, which is why he nearly constantly has it covered.

He has an obsession with tattoos, and is a masochist, which lead to him getting them done the muggle way, for the most part. Across his upper chest is "All the world's a stage" while a swan adorns the back of his neck. Written in flowing script down his side is "Absit Revarentia Vero" which roughly translates to "The truth shouldn't be silenced to spare someone."

Personality Description: Dalyrn's personality doesn't lend itself to having many friends. He's not shy, he's just hard to follow, his mind goes in so many different places at once it's hard for other people his age to keep up. For the most part he's introverted, constantly thinking of ways to improve on his magitech projects and various balance equations. most of his spare time he spends either shut up in Ravenclaw Tower or in some secluded spot in the castle either reading or, less often, experimenting. He doesn't like involving others because he doesn't like having to explain things.

He's obsessive, narcissistic, easily flustered, and finds showing emotion to other people difficult. However, if he and a person share a goal he finds them somehow easier to get along with. He doesn't usually get along with people his age because he's never had a real friend growing up. He just wasn't usually in one place long enough to develop lasting connections, and was home-schooled for his primary school years by his father, with lessons on magic by his mother while she was home.

He doesn't get along well with others because he can't fully understand how friendship is supposed to work, not that he'd ever admit this. He has a hard time understanding anything without a clear cut goal and endpoint, which has in the past led him to attempt to use people, rather than befriend them. He tries to steer clear of this now though, as he's realized the line between people and things.

History: From the time that he was 3 to when he was 9 he was often traveling with his mother, Anette Deschaine, maiden name Bagshot, an alumni of Hogwarts herself. Anette's an anthropologist dedicated to the study of magical culture the world over. His father is Marcus Deschaine, a muggle computer programmer also from Cardiff. Dalyrn was born in Cardiff, Wales, and thinks of himself as Welsh, not British. Sometimes Anette would bring him along when she'd discovered something truly beautiful. Even at this age he was already quite bright, learning about why, and more importantly to his mind, how magic worked from his mother during her stays at home, and learning about computers. At 5 1/2 he had his first attempt at a magitech device, a self-recharging battery. He designed it himself, having his father find the necessary components, and his mother cast the needed spells. The device existed on its own, but proved incompatible with muggle electronics, wearing down the circuit connections.

When he was 6, his father lost his job, and his mother was offered a contributing position to a book on the origin of non-latin based magic practices. The family as a whole uprooted from the US to South Africa, from which Anette would leave home  for months at a time studying both isolated groups of indigenous people, and how there was little to no separation of the magical and non-magical communities within them. One night, she brought along 6 year old Dalyrn to see a ritual, while unbeknownst to anyone there a Nundu was approaching the settlement. It attacked, fully intent on the death of everyone there. His mother grabbed him and ran, but in his fear he couldn't contain his budding magic and it burst out of him in an incandescent rain of sparks. The enormous cat turned and looked at him, and while distracted, a hunter's spear coated in the tribe's analogue to a penetration charm pierced the beast's throat, killing it as it thrashed about. As thanks, the tribe's most accomplished magic user, their "shaman" for lack of better term, after looking at his mother's wand, created one for him, using a whisker of the slain cat as the magical core. The shaman himself used a staff made from the same wood.

(I'll add the book, and possibly a few other excerpts after I can post.)

Tactical Magic of a Mid-African Tribe
It was a fearful situation in which I was able to observe firsthand some of the fighting magics used by tribal shamans of the region, and I admit I may not do it justice. I was there to observe a cremation ritual, one that grants a returned ghost limited capability to interact with the physical world. A few minutes after the ritual began, possibly drawn to the scene by the scent of roasting flesh, a nundu attacked the settlement.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Nundu, it appears similar to an enormous panther. It can move silently, and carries a highly potent pathogen in its breath that can cause death within twenty minutes for the especially sickly. If there hadn't been a scream from outside the village the entire tribe would have been caught unaware, and I suspect that this book may never have been finished. The tribesmen, nonmagical and magical both, responded quickly as the enormous cat padded into the village. The shamans conducting the ritual simultaneously broke focus and cast a barrier of sorts onto the fighters.

Non-Latin Spell 118: Air Pressure Barrier
Type: Protective
It appears to me that this spell may have been created specifically to fight the Nundu, and its capability to 'poison' its opponents. It appears as a slight heat-haze around the bodies of the subjects, and repulses both air and to a lesser extent physical objects away from the subject. There is no stream of light associated with the casting, but instead an orb of soft blue light floats from the tip of the shaman's staff to the subject.

This was the first spell cast in the battle, the second followed close behind, mere seconds before the nundu ripped through the closest building. It snatched a woman in its jaws as it broke through the grass hut, and the pieces of her body fell to either side as the beast snapped its jaws closed.

Non-Latin Spell 119: Anti-Coagulation Charm
Type: Medical, Offensive
This spell was later explained to me as something with use in both medicine and combat. It is cast on a tool such as a knife or a spear, and prevents a the blood coming from a wound caused by that tool from clotting and scabbing over for about an hour. It keeps the blood flowing and prevents a wound from closing. The affected tool glows red-hot, as if it were recently pulled from a fire, but does not change the properties of the tool.

The beast was struck a great many times with these weapons, but never in any sensitive area, and though it was after a while losing a great deal of blood it didn't even seem phased. During this time, none of the 60 or so magic-users of this village had actually entered the fray themselves, instead gathering in groups of roughly ten and chanting. Before one of the groups had finished whatever spell they were preparing the beast came upon them, breaking away from the hunters and tearing the people to pieces. Just as the hunters caught back up to the cat did the groups finish their casting.

Non-Latin Spells 120-123: Animal Avatar Summons
Type: Group, Conjuration, Animation, Ritual?
I list this as multiple spells because I saw 4 different animals  summoned by it, apparently composed completely of magical energy. It seemed similar to the Expecto Patronum charm, with the exception that these magical animals were completely capable of interacting with the physical world. Via these spells I saw created a rhinoceros, a bull elephant, two cheetah, and a bird of prey I am unable to identify. The animals were composed apparently of strands of colored light, and between the strands it was possible to see through them.

As soon as the avatars were created or summoned the nundu seemed to get bored of the hunters, as I recall taking two of them out with a single sweep of its tail. It charged for the bird first, pinning it down before the orange light was able to take off. I expected it to just scatter as the beast's weight fell upon it, but it held. It swiftly bit the head of the bird off though, and I could hear the unmistakable dry snap of bones. Instead of just fading away the bird seemed to unravel as the orange light lost it's shape and fell to the ground as what seemed to be a gleaming orange rope before disappearing completely.

Just as this happened, one of the cheetah pounced on the larger cat, sending the two into a spiral. The cheetah undoubtedly caused damage to the nundu, but after a single bite from the larger cat the cheetah also began to unravel. It maintained its shape for longer than the bird however, long enough for the nundu to actually tear some of the light-roped out of the cat's body and out into the open air, where they just sort of hung until the cheetah disappeared.

While this was going on the hunters were forming a wide half-circle around the beast, and more than a few had readied their spears to throw. As the nundu braced to meet the charging elephant the readied hunters launched their weapons, the majority making only superficial wounds, but one jamming itself deep into the muscle of its front leg. As the elephant closed with it the beast leaped upwards, out of the reach of its tusks. The spear fell out of its leg, and as it fell to the ground it nearly stumbled as the other cheetah tackled it. The second cheetah was unfortunately dispatched just as easily as the first.

The Nundu, easily outpacing the elephant, went for one of the shaman groups, perhaps realizing that the animals were controlled by them, or at least couldn't exist without them. As it charged into one of the groups, another now-free caster tried to prevent it from attacking a functioning group.

Non-Latin Spell 124: Self-Binding Rope
Type: Conjuration
A braided rope appears from the tip of the staff, apparently connected to it, and winds around the target.

This spell had a detrimental effect, as the caster's staff was ripped out of his hands as the rope coiled around one of the nundu's hind legs. Interestingly enough, after the staff was taken from the man, the rope and staff stayed attached to the beast's leg, and it dragged the thing around for the remainder of the fight. It did not prevent the cat from decimating the group it had gone after, and soon after the elephant winked out of existence. It turned towards the last group, as the rhinoceros charged and gored the beast.

Blood sprayed up into the air as a gleaming horn pierced its body, and claws came down on the rhino's thick magical hide. The sharp claws dragged down the magical strands, distorting the image of the summoned beast beyond recognition. My associate and I looked on in fear as the last of the beasts became nothing by the savage claws. It turned in our direction as uncontrolled magic burst from my companion, uncontrolled and pointless.

In that moment a spear was thrown and lodged itself in the beast's neck, blood spilling through the thin fur and into the ground. The nundu thrashed around as more hunters closed in on the wounded beast, and it managed to destroy three more of the village's structures before it was subdued by the hunter's spears.

She doesn't focus much on the contribution of her son because it's not really relevant to the topic of the book.

After he turned 10, his parents started thinking about his education, and after careful thought the family decided to move back to his father's home in Cardiff, so that Dalyrn could attend Hogwarts. While his mother would still travel, always having the family home there, at least until he graduated, would ensure that he was able to stay in the school. Marcus was able to get an engineering job with a firm in Cardiff called Torchwood. (To anyone who knows what I'm referencing, it's just as a joke. I'm most certainly NOT planning on bringing alien magitech into this.) 

During his years at Hogwarts he's only been improving on his inventions, and doing his research and minor experiments, nothing too dangerous or apt to get him in trouble. He spends his school holidays with his mum, assisting with her various research projects, and the summer holidays in Cardiff, larking about the city and helping his dad out.

How Do You Fit Into Your House?: --TBD--

Writing Sample: Removed

Sum up your character in one paragraph: Dalyrn is distant, and hard to get along with, because he has a single ideal and a singleminded focus on his goal, which is to uncover a unifying truth which reconciles magical law (Laws of how magic works, not wizarding laws) with the laws of physics. He finds emotion difficult, and more often than not a waste of time, as well as unnecessary and even dangerous to logical thinking. It takes a lot for him to even smile. He's earned a reputation for being a loner. He does well in his grades because he sees assignments as clear-cut tasks to be done and problems to be solved. Friendship is not nearly so straightforward.