Accepted ~Armiece
Revamp'ed 8/26/2012

Your Nickname: Gemini
Have you read and do you agree to the Code of Conduct?: Yes
How did you find us and decide to write with us? RPG Directory
If you have written other characters here: Yes
If Yes, list them all: Alvis Norling, Ravenclaw 3rd Year
Is this a Primary or Secondary Character?: Primary

Darius Gabor

Full Character Name: Darius Andrius Gabor
Character Birthday & Age: August 22nd, 1973; 37 years old
City & Country of Birth: Baku, Azerbaijan
Blood Purity: Halfblood
Alma Mater: Beit Gaddol (Mevin)

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Cover Job (If any): Foreign correspondent for the Azeri Wizarding Times, an Azerbaijani newspaper, under the name Juda Darzi.

Type of Criminal: Jack-of-all-Illegal-Trades; but he specializes in kidnappings
Allegiances / Loyalties / Political Faction: Whoever’s offering the best price, which currently means the WBA.

Have they committed any previous crimes?: Yes
If yes, what were they and were they convicted?:
1) Murder -- Convicted on 3 counts, including the murder of a child, in mid-2001. (However, he did not actually commit any of them.) Wanted for three additional murders committed since his escape later that year. (These he actually did) Has also committed one additional murder of which the courts have no record.

2) Kidnapping -- His speciality from 1991-1995, for which he is still widely notorious. Convicted on four counts, all but one of which saw the safe return of the child once demands had been met. Committed one additional kidnapping in England in October of 2001, but no official evidence yet exists to connect him as such.

3) Repeated casting of Unforgiveable Curses -- Approximately a dozen counts, of which he has so far received five convictions. Authorities believe that he has also used them on children, but this is not actually true.

4) Other -- Multiple counts of assault, coercion, blackmail, smuggling, breaking & entering, and theft, all committed since his 2001 escape. No convictions so far and there's far too many of them count.

Total Convictions: Three counts of murder, four counts of kidnapping, and five counts of casting unforgiveable curses, totally approximately 9 life sentences in Azkaban. Was sentenced to death for the murder of Aaliyah Zamon, but managed to escape before the sentence was carried out.


What crimes might you commit in the future?  Discuss all possible:
As hired muscle, Darius is capable and willing to perform any of the crimes listed above. HOWEVER, he has by and large given up kidnapping since his last job in 1996, and he is not a hired killer. That's not to say he won't kill someone on a job, just that it's not going to be one the things he's paid to do.

Are you currently under pursuit by the Ministry of Magic?: Yes

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Wand: Black palm, Demiguise hair, ten-and-a-half inches, somewhat pliable; it’s been broken and mended twice before and sometimes backfires.

Physical Description:
Height: 6’3”
Weight:  170 lbs.
Hair: Black, trimmed short; sometimes has stubble by virtue of forgetting to shave.
Eyes: Dark Brown
Skin: Olive

A word to describe Darius’s appearance would be “sharp,” but not in the sense that he is well-dressed. Actually, it’s quite the opposite – more often than not, he’s dressed in whatever he was able to nick for himself, and heaven forbid he devote any actual time to his grooming. Rather, he’s made almost entirely of sharp angles – strong cheekbones, a defined jawline, a nose that comes to a sharp point, and joints that could puncture balloons. Even if you don’t know he’s a criminal, it gives him a dangerous edge.

But up until three years ago, he had a very different appearance. His hair was longer and thicker, his nose was larger, he was a few inches taller (6’6”), and his skin was darker, giving him much more a of a Romani appearance than his current middle-eastern one. This is because his appearance was becoming so infamous that he risked exposure every time he walked among normal wizards, so he purposefully botched a batch of Polyjuice Potion to disfigure himself. The mistake could be easily corrected with magic, but he’s refused to do so because he likes the disguise. Now his appearance is about halfway between himself and the Muggle Israeli shopkeeper whose hair he used to make the potion.

That said, the potion was not a perfect solution. As a result, he sometimes has trouble breathing through his nose, and his left leg is a good two inches shorter than his right, giving him a limp. It also did not eliminate the black-and-white tattoo of a peacock on his back, which is the only way the wizarding authorities have to identify him now.

He doesn’t much care for fashion, trends, or any sort of primping more detailed than a basic hygiene routine. He likes to stay clean, but if it comes down to getting caught by the cops, he’ll take hiding in the woods over a shower any day. His preferred style of dress is multi-layered and warm – think ‘action hobo' – and he usually wears clothes until they’re literally falling off of him, but should the occasion arise when he needs to dress better, he’s not above stealing a new suit just for that night.

His ragged traveler’s appearance has led some to believe that he is actually a werewolf. This is not true, though you wouldn’t know it from the way he fights. He’s just as good with a knife as he is with spells.

Personality Description:
Darius is a man with many walls. There's the wall between his two professional lives, the wall built to contain what little decency he still possesses and, strongest of all, the walls that keep him from forging connections with other people. These were built up over time and rarely, if ever, come down.

That said, he seems to have an odd soft spot for children. Though he mostly avoids people, when pressed into interaction with a child he can relate to them very quickly, earning their trust. He becomes quite protective of the children he forges this bond with and often goes to what others would see as extreme lengths to make sure they're well taken care of. On the rare times someone has dared to ask, he justifies his career choice of kidnapping-for-hire by pointing out that the parents probably did something to deserve being threatened and, if anyone is going to drag the kids into it, it might as well be someone who actually cares. 

He also has an alternating fondness for some magical birds and an outright hatred for owls. If you’re going to contact him via owl, don’t use one that you’d be heartbroken if it never came back.

It must also be said that Darius has some sense of the subtly dramatic, perhaps inherited from his romani relatives. His calling card during his kidnapping career was to leave a single large, white feather behind in place of the child, along with a spell similar to that of a Howler that recites the initial demands of his clients in the child’s voice.

He rarely, if ever, connects with the real world of wizard-kind and, when he’s not on a job of some sort, makes a point of staying in the background. He’s the sort of guy who lurks suspiciously in the corner of gloomy pub, and if you dare to start a conversation with him, he’ll either spend the time snarking about everyone’s flaws or stab you in the leg depending on what kind of day it’s been. The only people he has a functional relationship with is his fellow criminals, and that’s mostly because he’s smart enough to know that good connections and cynical loyalty are the best way to survive living as an illegal outcast.

As far as that sort of life goes, he’s pretty neutral about the whole thing. This is what he has to do to live the way he likes, and he’s not complaining. Usually, he’s a pretty reasonable sort of guy, as far as criminals go.

History:
Darius’s family was a Romani clan in every sense of the word. His parents were, for all intents and purposes, both Muggle-borns, as they did not keep track of such things in their clan. Said clan was a nomadic one of about 20 people, mostly breeders of owls and magical birds, who traveled through Europe and the Middle East in a caravan. Darius's family in particular specialized in magical birds and, when Darius was nine years old, he hatched, raised, and bonded with a male caladrius which he named Faigel.

Because his family traveled most often in the Middle East, Darius attended Beit Gaddol, but it must be said that he did not fit in there. Despite the school’s constant attempts to be a united force for light and good, Darius was an outsider who trusted no one, interacted very little with his fellow classmates, rejected all Jewish teachings and, eventually, turned to Dark Magic.

When Darius was fifteen, his family's failing trade in magical birds finally collapsed. They were forced to sell all of their birds -- including Faigel, much to Darius's horror -- in order to have the money to settle down in Jerusalem, where Darius continued to attend Beit Gadol.

Eighteen months later, he stumbled upon the home of the man who had purchased Faigel, a Healer with scrupulous morals who worked primarily in back-alleys for the city's criminal underground. There Darius discovered that Faigel was being terribly abused, made to take on the illnesses of a hundred patients but never allowed to disperse the evil by flying. In a rage, Darius killed the healer in his first murder and stole Faigel back, hiding in Beit Gadol to avoid the repercussions.

He returned to his family's apartment at the next school break to find his parents both dead -- murdered by the healer's criminal contacts. Realizing that nothing remained to keep them in the hated city any longer, Darius packed everything he could carry, took Faigel, and hit the road, never to return to school.

From thereon, he spent the next several years establishing himself as a prominent figure in the Eastern-European/Middle Eastern wizarding underworld, eventually establishing his brand of sorts in 1991 with the kidnapping of an Israeli wizard diplomat’s son at the behest of local Death Eater supporters. The demands were met and the child was returned, unharmed, with only his memory modified to forget the face of his kidnapper; but the rumors spread anyway and Darius’s reputation as a kidnapper was assured.

In 1995, he took on a job that would change his life -- kidnapping six-year-old Aaliyah Zamon, daughter of a corrupt Iraqi wizarding official. In the three weeks they spent together, Darius discovered that Aaliyah did not want to return to her father, who tended to neglect her because she was not a son. So it was no surprise that his employer's ransom demands were never met. Contractually, Darius was supposed to kill the little girl. Instead, he used a potion to burn her fingerprints away, modified her memory, and left her on the doorstop of an Estonian orphanage, where he trusted that she would someday find a good home.

Darius, seeking vengene on Aaliyah's behalf, began psychologically torturing the official and his wife whenever he returned to that part of the world. Frustrated that six years of subtle efforts seemed to have no effect, he eventually attacked them in their home and subjected both to the cruciatus curse. The wife -- who was already vulnerable from the previous assaults -- lost her mind, but the husband managed to retain his sanity.

Darius was arrested shortly thereafter, in early 2001, and was tried for his various crimes. During the trial, he confessed to the murder of Aaliyah Zamon, but remained silent when his parents' murder was brought up, leading to a conviction on that count as well. He was sentenced to death but lucked out, as an earthquake struck while he was being transported to prison, allowing him to escape.

He fled to England, only to meet with aurors in hot pursuit. Alone and severely injured, he collapsed in an abandoned gardener’s hut on the edge of a tiny village in Shropshire. Without Faigel – who was serving in the capacity of an owl at the time of his attack – he was about ready to die there, and he probably would have, had he not been discovered by a curious six-year-old local boy by the name of Alvis Norling.

Not knowing what the man had done, Alvis helped him with his wounds as best a six-year-old could, and when Darius asked him not to tell anyone, he promised to keep it all a secret. For almost a month, Darius stayed in the gardener’s hut and under Alvis’s care, until the little boy started to consider him a friend and, despite everything, Darius found himself growing equally fond of the kid. Because of that, he lingered in Adderley too long, and an Auror team came sniffing around, slipping in secretly so as not to disturb the townsfolk.

So Darius had to make tracks and, in his classic style, he took Alvis with him in case he needed a hostage. After two days, it became clear that the Auror team had followed the wrong trail, but now the boys’ parents were starting to search for their missing son. As he had with Aaliyah,Darius grew fond of the young boy, and this child had a family to return to. So, once he was certain he would not be pursued further, Darius wiped Alvis’s memory of the last month with a Memory Charm, left him in a nearby field where he would soon be found, and disappeared from that region for good.

In the six years since, Darius has spent most of his time slipping between borders and across the channel doing whatever illicit odds and ends would make him the most profit. He’s smuggled illegal goods, traded in narcotic potions, and stolen magical artifacts. He’s fairly well-known in the underworld as being the guy who is willing and able to do just about anything short of planned assassination, but ever since his encounter with Alvis, he has been unwilling to kidnap children, no matter what the price.

Currently, he’s on the payroll of the WBA, but since they haven’t put him to work just yet, he’s been making pocket change smuggling illegal potion ingredients in from Africa.



Writing Sample: See Alvis Norling.

Sum up your character in one paragraph: A sociopathic kidnapper who, for some bizarre reason, only emphasizes with the kids he snatches to get to their parents. He likes birds but hates owls, works for whoever will pay him the most, and has an unknowing morality pet waiting in the wings at Hogwarts. Currently aligned with the WBA.

From Wikipedia: According to the Roman mythology, the Caladrius is a snow-white bird that lives in kings' houses. Supposedly, the bird refuses to look at any patient that is not going to make a full recovery. Caladrius existed in the Greek mythology under the name Dhalion. It is said to also be able to take the sickness into itself and then fly away, dispersing the sickness and healing both itself and the sick person. Though now regarded as mere allegory by most Muggles, Caladrius birds (plural: Caladriai) are in fact a very real, if exotic, species of magical bird. Physically speaking, they closely resemble large white doves, with the exception of their tail feathers, which are almost as long as the bird's body and are slightly transparent, giving way to pale color at the very tips. This is the only way for non-experts to tell the difference between a male and a female Caladrius - male tail feathers give way to a pale blue, while the females fade into a pale purple.

Though rare in Britain, the Caladrus is highly valued by healers in the Middle East and Africa due to its unique healing abilities. If a Caladrius is placed by the beside of a person suffering from illness, it will either turn its back on the patient or look them in the eye. If it turns its back, then the doctors know that there is no hope - the illness will be fatal - but if there is even the slightest chance of survival, the Caladrius will make eye contact, drawing the patient's illness into its own body. Once the patient is cleared of all illness, the Caladrius is released into the sky, where it purges the sickness from its own body and returns, worn, but healthy.

In addition, Caladrius tears have minor regenerative properties, though not nearly so powerful as those of its distant cousin, the phoenix. If applied over the period of several days, Caladrius tears can speed the healing process of open wounds and prevent infection in them, similar to Muggle ointments.

Despite all of this, Caladrius can be tempermental to work with, because they tend to bond with a single human and will remain loyal to them throughout their lives. It takes a very skills trainer to raise a Caladrius without bonding to it, and even hatching their delicate, amber-color eggs can be a tricky magical ordeal.