Your Nickname: Dlee
Have you read and do you agree to the Code of Conduct?: Yes
How did you find us and decide to write with us? Friend
If you have written other characters here: Yes
If Yes, list them all: Deus Deres - PRIMARY
Vladlena Savitskaya - PRIMARY/TWT
Colm Quigley - SECONDARY
Is this a Primary or Secondary Character?: Primary
Full Character Name: Ferreole Francois Syprien Busseon LeBeau
Character Birthday & Age: December 21, 1910 - 98 years old
City & Country of Birth: Atchafalaya Basin, Louisiana/USA
Blood Purity: Halfblood
Alma Mater: Salem Witches' Institute
Job/Position: Headmaster of Salem Witches' Institute
Wand: 13" - Apple - Kraken Heartstring
Physical Description: People are often surprised to learn that Ferreole is only mere inches taller than an average American man, because he often leaves the impression that you have been bellowed at by a giant. He has a presence, from the absurd, flamboyantly flashy (and often clashing) robes of all shades of purple (often all at once), silver and black, to the knobbly cane, peg leg and roaring, deep, rich laughter. He's thin as a whipcord, and his age shows in his face and hands. Billowing around him is his distinct voice—deep, warm, buttery, smoky and gravelly all at once. He has a voice that's easy to listen to, whatever volume it is.
His hair and beard are not a snowy, grandfatherly white that you might expect from his age—they are steel grey and only streaked with white. His skin is a deep, rich, darker-than-mahogany brown and smooth for his age, though his face holds wrinkles that tell of his decades. There are laugh lines on his mouth, eyes and cheeks, and his eyes are a deep brown that's almost black. Scattered over his cheeks are distinct freckles, and over his eyes are two monumentally expressive, bushy eyebrows.
His left leg, from just below the knee down is a wooden peg. The result of a wound from a cursed animal, it was an injury that couldn't be healed by magical means. At this point in his life, he's spent over double the amount of time without his leg than with it, and he moves with surprising nimbleness and grace when people aren't watching (when they are, he clumps around noisily for effect). The peg is beautifully engraved with images from stories, and the scenes seem to shift with the seasons. He has a big knobby stick, similarly engraved, that he wields like a conquering king’s sword. His knobbly stick is a thing of terror for many of his more unruly students, and no small few that do behave. It’s hard to say which is more intimidating—the fact he uses it to knock people on the head who are causing trouble (something his staff has no doubt tried desperately and in vain to get him to stop), its tendency to come squishing down on unsuspecting feet that are trying to slip into forbidden areas, or the fact the rumor that's really a wand whose core is the kraken's disaster karma that would be enough to flatten a New York city block if the pent-up magic was released. It's just a stick, truly, but if it gets people out of the way, he's a happy man. And if people are afraid of it, they won't get close enough to realize the big knobbly top is hollow, and he keeps a hearty flask of spiced pumpkin juice in it at all times.
He's mostly blind out of his left eye, and mostly deaf out of his left ear, which have led to a habit of perpetually tilting his head ever so slightly.
Personality Description: Ferreole LeBeau is vicious, vindictive, loud, tyrannical, mad with power, crazy, unforgiving, harsh, and generally loved by everyone who has ever seen him barrel along, bellowing at the unwary. Supposedly a tough, totalitarian tyrant, the fact he's a complete marshmallow with a mushy heart of gold is the worst kept secret at Salem. His students are the blood in his veins and the spring to his step, and despite every effort on his part to play the role of grumpy, angry, curmudgeonly, world-hating old wizard, even the most terrified Salem Junior can find the fond, misty twinkle in his eye. But more on that later.
There are, in the world, a select few cultures that can claim their culture as a personality trait. Ferreole happens to belong to one of them. A raving, raging Louisiana Cajun wizard, several decades away from the bayou of his birth have failed to shake the accent, the attitude, or the quirks that come from being a member of a distinct culture. He has not been to his home in almost eighty years, so it would be invalid to assume he's representative of the distinct culture, but it played a role in shaping him as much as anything. He plays up the accent and the character because it's what people expect, and he heartily, wickedly enjoys the chaos he can imbue into his world through those expectations. He is a man with a flair for the dramatic and high-volumed theatricality. Colorful, eccentric, feverishly vibrant and overwhelming, Ferreole isn't someone you forget easily.
He’s always there to help, but the process can be vaguely terrifying and more than a little chaotic. You know, when you go to Ferreole, or when he seeks you out—his deep love for his students and his years of watching their tragedies and triumphs have given him a knack for sensing when one of them needs him—that his advice, his musings, his words or his presence will be precisely what you need. It just comes with the side effect of feeling a bit like the survivor of an unexpected tornado. His personal knowledge of people and the world is immense, and his astute passion often lends him an uncanny awareness of who his students are and who they might become. He happily raises heck with a voice like buttery gravel, and his friendly slaps on the back of encouragement could send a giant sprawling, but the man knows, and has always known, what is needed of him. As much as he loves his students, he knows the best way to help them is to sometimes be hard on them, and his advice can be cryptic and hidden, his manner harsh, and words cold. There's nothing, nothing he wouldn't do to help and heal his students, but if what they need most is for him to stand back and let them be hurt, he'll do it. They rise and fall on their own merit. He won't cheat for them even if everyone else has an advantage, he won't make excuses for them. But he won't turn away from his decisions, either. And it's hard—agonizingly so.
However, he endeavors very hard to ensure that no one knows (everyone does), and so he bellows and stomps around the hallowed hall of Salem, clumping dramatically and emphatically harrumphing at all he sees, periodically tripping suits of armor with either the wooden leg or the cane he often forgets he's supposed to "need", acting every inch the curmudgeonly old wizard who's just a little off his rocker—though, point of interest, that last part isn't really an act. He keeps a stuffed alligator under his desk (the rumor is it took his leg, and he responded accordingly) and it has been known to wander off, occasionally slinking underneath the dining hall tables, nipping at unwary ankles, and not so occasionally chasing down ickle Salem Juniors out too late after curfew. Everyone is fairly certain the creature isn't an actual, living alligator—for one, it's far too big—but few are willing to take the risk of getting close enough check for certain. Particularly since another popular rumor is that it can breathe fire after a charm attempting to turn it into a replica of the school mascot stuck. Ferreole loves nothing more than surprising and off-balancing people, and his actions often seem spontaneous, frenzied, and no small part completely, comfortably crazy. He likes his food spicy, his staff on their toes, and his students to have backbones—he's been known to issue demerits like they're candy to any student that loses to him in Quodpot. And he never forgets. His mind is a steel trap of small details about his students, he can make a grown man with a grandchild on the way turn scarlet to the ears recalling a tale of the time he tried to sneak into the girl's loo as an unruly eleven year-old, or a married woman with children blush as he recalls a schoolgirl crush she had on her Transfiguration professor that no one was supposed to know about. The man knows things. And remembers them. Anniversaries, weddings, and milestone birthdays often arrive with a congratulatory letter in Ferreole's cramped, rambling handwriting.
His staff, if they aren’t similarly nutty, most likely find him exhausting to deal with. He's both everywhere at once and nowhere to be found (though he will turn up at the zeroth hour, two inches behind you in a dark hallway, poking you with his cane). It's a constant battle on the part of his staff to get him to enforce punishments—not a hard one, because he knows they're right and caves because of it, but a constant one nonetheless. And woe to the poor staff member that tries to rein him in, it's just a lost cause. He roars at them, expects nigh impossible standards out of them, and someone gets 'fired' at least once a week, which can be terrifying for new teachers, but the staff is accustomed to it. But one must keep up appearances.
If he has more subtle weaknesses—beneath the abrasive mannerisms, the mushy affections and eccentric, domineering demeanor—they are these: he is impatient at best, and intolerably demanding at worst. He is brutal in his expectations and yet rarely explicit in defining them. He is solitary, and his plans and meddles and reasoning are clear only to him; he doesn't often let other people in on the grand plans, and can be maddeningly, frustratingly evasive. He's abrupt and blunt, and never apologizes for anything—he doesn't require apologies from anyone else, and fails to recognize that the rest of the world doesn't operate that way. He also operates as leader much better in crisis mode than in day-to-day things—he isn't the most effective man when it comes to daily operations, which bore him. And finally, most significantly, his heart is tired. That memory of his comes with a price. The aches grow with each small tragedy he witnesses, because he doesn’t know how to let them go, can't bear the little failures and sadnesses building on the ones that have followed him through wars and ages. At the end of the day, when the bellowing has hit its last echo, the students away and abed, the professors appeased, and his bones are tired, he mourns. He mourns all of it—the friends lost to the years and wars and accidents, the lost students, figurative and literal, and colleagues of past years, their sorrows and hurts that he can't fix. He also mourns his wife. It is the greatest sorrow in his life, and one that haunts him in all he does. As the years pass, though wizards age more slowly than humans, he finds it harder and harder, his curse-wounded leg aches more and more each year, and while his mind is as sharp as ever, he finds it harder to keep up with it. He's getting tired—the indefatigable days of his youth well behind him—and he finds himself slowing down. Getting Salem involved in the Tetra Wizard Tournament for (presumably?) the first time may be his farewell, a parting present to the school he loves.
If there was ever any doubt about Ferreole's character, one need only see him summon his patronus—a roaring, silvery Swedish shortsnout, the mascot of the school that houses his bruised, loving, monumentally mushy heart.
History: EARLY LIFE: 1910-1921
Ferreole was born shortly after the turn of the century to a witch of Creole descent and a Cajun wizard father—a distinction they were always clear to make and one their children usually ignored. He spent his childhood deep in the Atchafalaya Basin (or Swamp, as he affectionately recalls it), running around barefoot, dancing to enchanted accordions, and helping his parents go about their daily routines. He had three younger sisters, and took immense pride in being the oldest and the only boy. His parents, weary of a world that did not treat them well, cultivated a reputation that led to the legend of a Swamp Witch to keep people away. He worked hard in his childhood, and his parents taught him things practically—his first experiences healing were at his parents' knees. From them also came his immense capacity for love. They loved each other, they loved their children, they loved their home, and they loved even the people who treated them badly. His mother often mixed potions and healing spells (disguised as "home remedies") for the very people who called her a swamp witch, and Ferreole learned both prejudice and forgiveness very young. His magic manifested in the form of a leech about the size of a small elephant, gurgling and chasing one of his little sisters in its sluggish way. His father didn't live to see the manifestation, because he had gone to the muggle army for reasons that would take Ferreole decades to truly understand, and had lost his life in the first world war.
SCHOOL YEARS: 1921-1928
Overall, Ferreole was not an exceptional student at the Salem Witches Institute, but there were classes where he was brilliant, and there was never really a doubt that his abilities left him suited for the route of a Healer, even if he had the sort of superhero dream of every young boy, and briefly considered the route of an Auror. It was in school where he met the love of his life, though it would take him nearly a decade to convince her the feeling was mutual. Euphrosine “Eula” Mae Bellefontaine was born the fifth daughter in a family with seven children and no money to their name. Highly religious, they disowned her as soon as her abilities were apparent, and so Euphrosine, who had a wanderlust from day one, walked out of their lives into the magical world without so much as a glance backward. But her heart was mistrustful, and she resisted Ferreole with every bone in her body. He was in love with her from year one, but she didn't soften towards him until their sixth year, when Ferreole lost his two youngest sisters and his mother, both to the Great Flood of 1927, where they had stayed behind to help care for the damaged population. Their deaths hit him hard, and he's always felt he should have been there, and that he could have done something.
THE TRANSITORY PERIOD: 1928-1941
Ferreole's young adulthood is a period of his life that seems distinct from the rest of it. He doesn't look back on it often, and the only point of note he remembers with crystal clarity is the day he finally convinced his ladylove to marry him. For almost two decades he had patiently waited for her to come around, keeping his hexing of her other would-be suitors to a minimum, and doing his best to be her best friend. She was a competitive woman with a fury in her heart and had faced nearly insurmountable obstacles to become a Hit Witch of some notoriety, and it was Ferreole's unquestioning support of her path that won her over in the end. Ferreole spent the entirety of this period working as a healer. Given the prevailing situation of the time, he didn't go to any advanced schooling, instead learning the task as a sort of apprentice to the workers in the North American Magical Hospital (and patching up his future wife on numerous occasions, much to her general dismay and in spite of her usual insistence on getting someone else—limited staff, you know), fighting discrimination and ugly prejudices against him, and facing each indignity, small and great, with patient determination and grit. He and Euphrosine spent two blissful years as a married couple, often separated because of the nature of their jobs, but in near constant contact.
THE KRAKEN: 1941
In December of 1941, Euphrosine's work had sent her to Hawaii, and Ferreole had requested leave from the hospital to follow her, and the two traveled the long distance anticipating a very much delayed honeymoon (which they hadn't had because of finances and time constraints previously). Unfortunately, it didn't work out that well. In the middle of the night on their December visit, Euphrosine, who had exhibited seer abilities in the past, hauled Ferreole out of bed with little to no explanation except that she had to get everyone out of the harbor.
It turned out she had good reason. By the time Ferreole made it to the harbor, the
Pacific Kraken had already begun to lay waste to the ocean island. A gargantuan beast, it hadn't surfaced in centuries, and the small wizarding population of the islands had no idea how to fight it. They tried, and Ferreole joined in the fight. Eventually, out of understandable panic, the remaining witches and wizards fled, Disapparating to their homes to gather their loved ones and flee by any magical means possible. Ferreole stayed not out of any deep well of courage, but because he knew Euphrosine and her deeply ingrained sense of equality in the face of injustice, would stay because the muggles had no way of escaping. He remembers knowing, on some deep level, that she was already beyond his grasp, because she never came during his fight, and had she been alive, had there been even the barest hint of breath left in her after evacuating the ones who needed her, she would have come. He attributes, with no false modesty or coyness, his ability to defeat the Kraken in the end, to her and the knowledge of that insurmountable loss.
The small band of wizards had done enough damage before the left to give Ferreole a chance. A Healer, his knowledge of combat came only from its aftermath, but his knowledge of bodies, and their weaknesses, was vast. He tangled the beasts many legs with a powerful curse, and while it raged and fought the binding, Ferreole did the stupidest thing he ever did in his entire life. He got on a broom and skyrocketed into a screaming dive, charging like the madman he's been accused of being since the day of his birth, right into the beast's left eye: broom, wizard, wand and all.
In its death throes, its many tentacles desperately trying to remove the item lodged inside, the creature got a hold of the then-unconscious Ferreole with the very tip of its cursed tentacles, crushing his left leg and snapping it off like the stern of a wooden ship, flinging him away, back to land, where he would be found sometime later, more dead than alive. The Kraken sunk, because the broom had managed to hit its squishy brain, and it wasn't too hard to figure out that the man covered in squishy Kraken brains had done the job.
RECOVERY and RECUPERATION: 1941-1950
Ferreole spent a long time recovering. He was delirious for most of it, spending nearly the entirety of his fevers calling for his wife and begging to see her. The healers tried to restore his leg, but being that the kraken was a cursed being, they were unable to. Ferreole was awarded all sorts of nonsense and medals that are shoved in a closet somewhere, but most notably, he was awarded the Kraken's treasure, amassed over centuries of smashing pirate ships and discovered by the wizards who had been sent to deal with the aftermath. Ferreole refused to touch it, on the grounds that he was generally unsure he did the right thing. The Pacific Kraken was a beast, and a dangerous one who was clearly capable of killing (and indeed, many lost lives that day before the battle started, in addition to the thousands it shipwrecked, ate, and drowned over the centuries), but there was a majesty to it, and Ferreole is still somewhat haunted by its loss. Plus he hates all the hustle and huff and puff of heroism. As far as he's concerned, he did a damn stupid thing and got lucky. End of story. He use a single coin of the treasure to buy two pieces of the destruction's residual driftwood that would eventually become his cane and his peg leg, figuring the beast owed him that much.
When he was sufficiently recovered, Ferreole left to serve the witches and wizards overseas, working as a healer and other's hurts as a way to lessen his own. He couldn't bear the daily reminders of his lost wife, and going to help in the war was a vital distraction. Because he cared little for his own safety during this time, he often arrived to places where Dark magic had been performed either right before or right after the Aurors, caring for the cursed and wounded without much question. He developed many contacts in the European magical world during this time, as well as a considerable boost to his reputation of being somewhat bat-shit crazy.
HOSPITAL and SALEM: 1950-1968
When Ferreole returned at last to the United States, he found himself somewhat adrift. He was offered his old job back at the hospital, which he took, but found quickly he no longer belonged there. An opening had come up at the Salem Witches' Institute for someone to run the hospital wing and teach Medical Magic, and Ferreole, with his field experience, his now legendary stories, and his sort of fondness for people with some measure of retained innocence, fit the bill. His 'character' was something he had developed to keep people from asking him questions about his leg and how he was doing and all of that nonsense, and he played it up considerably in his new position, surrounded by curious critters. But while he generated something of a reputation for being terrifying, it became equally quickly known that he would get a House Elf to smuggle you some ice cream after a throat-chord curse, or tell ridiculous stories of singing accordions to a homesick Salem junior.
No one really knows when the alligator showed up. It just did, and Ferreole refused to answer questions about it. To this day, it still sleeps in the medical wing sometimes, flopped over the feet of some inevitably terrified sick student.
FLU to PRESENT: 1968—Present
Ferreole's ascension to the position of Headmaster was an odd one, and it came, unsurprisingly, as the result of his unique strengths in a time when they were needed. Twice in his time at Salem, an influenza curse swept through the United States, affecting muggles and magical folks alike. A country caught unprepared, the first run in the early fifties was devastating—and school was even canceled, students sent home, in an attempt to keep from losing anymore students. Ferreole worked tirelessly during this time, and the school lost fewer students than one may have expected because of it, but a curse is a curse. The pandemic passed, and life went on as usual, but Ferreole insisted and insisted it would come back. Despite a sort of dismissive attitude from the others on staff (some, not all), he insisted. And on his own, he went to work establishing safeguards, developing a pre-emptive countercourse he dutifully administered to each and every student, so that if the curse came back, he wouldn't lose a student.
In 1968, it did, and he didn't. He carried the school through the second pandemic without a loss, and his strategies, procedures, and spells were mimicked throughout North America, with the result that the North American magical community as a whole lost very few of their kind to the curse. That year, when the Headmistress stepped down, Ferreole was elected on account of his leadership during the pandemic, and his popularity with parents who remembered the curse's first run through the school. He's been grumpy and harrumphin' around the school ever since. He promotes immense tolerance and equality in his school, never quite forgetting what he, his family, and his departed wife faced growing up.
The rest of the kraken's treasure rots in his account, being used for Salem scholarships, charities to help displaced witches and wizards (particularly after Katrina) and two wings of the North American Magical Hospital (one for magical creature injuries, one veterinary wing). None of this really helps his "I'm mean and ornery" image, despite the fact none of it is in his name.
Describe your job duties and how you go about them: Ferreole, as Headmaster, has the authority to make all major decisions regarding the safety and the day-to-day functioning of the school, and has override capabilities over the other staff members (which he rarely invokes). He moderates decisions on funding, curriculum, and admissions, but he rarely invokes his authority as Headmaster (as evidenced by his constant firing of staff that he never
actually fires) and his favorite part of the job is just ensuring that the students who come through his school leave with a solid education, little to no trauma, and some sense of where they're going.
Point of interest, he detests funding and dealing with it, and his staff have to actively chase him down and hex him to his chair to get him to go over balance sheets and such. He does it in the end, but usually only after locking himself in his office for 48 hours with lots of angry banging and yelling. But he gets it done in the end.
Elaborate on your expertise in your field: Ferreole taught at Salem for nearly two decades before becoming Headmaster, and before that, he had experience teaching medical magic to the witches and wizards learning in the field during the wars, and in the hospital prior to that. He's patient in a way that most people don't realize, and has a solid awareness of how people learn. His impeccable memory and acute knowledge of people and when they may need him are his greatest strengths as a Headmaster. He is, perhaps, far better at the intangible aspects of his job than the black and white tasks that must be done, but his great passion for the job usually lead him to the right decisions in the end.
Writing Sample: Sum up your character in one paragraph: Ferreole LeBeau is a curmudgeonly, ornery old Cajun wizard, whose mushy heart of marshmallowy gold is the worst kept secret in the North American magical community. A little bit crazy, distinctly theatrical, colorful, eccentric, feverishly vibrant and more than a little bit terrifying, Ferreole stomps through like like a one-man tornado with a steel trap of a memory, and heavy past his students both help to heal and make heavier each year.
Ferreole LeBeau | Headmaster of Salem Witches Institute of Magic