Philomenes Kecklepenny
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| Philomenes Oisien Nereus Kecklepenny-Mykonos | |
|---|---|
| Biographical Information | |
| Born | 3 January 1984, 28 |
| Current City | Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Blood status | Half-blood |
| Also known as | Phil |
| Physical Information | |
| Species | Part Veela |
| Gender | male |
| Hair Colour | Pale Blonde |
| Eye Colour | Pale |
| Skin Colour | Pale |
| Magical Characteristics | |
| Wand(s) | |
| |
| Special Abilities | Veela Charm |
| Education | |
| School | Hogwarts |
| House | Ravenclaw |
| Class of | 2002 |
| Occupation | |
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| Character Information | |
| Ash | |
Philomenes is a quarter-veela who's lost his charm (if he had any too begin with) -- well, at least in the physical sense. He has his sudden insights of intellect and rare (very rare) beauty, but these are muddled by the magical wreck he's made of his nervous system. Everything about Phil's shoddy situation could have been prevented. He had comfort, beauty, money -- and he tossed it all over his shoulder for thievery, leaky roofs, and sleepless nights.
Perhaps one day he'll wake up and declare the whole thing an sociological experiment analyzing the mind of the common London wizard criminal. If he ever sleeps, that is. There's no 'waking up' with insomnia.
History
Cuchulainn Kecklepenny was what every housewitch in Edinburgh would’ve called a ‘good man’. Whatever the hell that meant. The only flaw they could see was that the man didn’t have a woman, all caught up in his books and treatise writing.
For you see, Cuchulainn was a classic knowledge hungry Ravenclaw. His focus was Arcane Muggle Practices of Pre-Sixteenth Century Society and Ancient Magics. His studies sent him to the Caribbean to study voodoo culture, druids in his native Scotland, and fatefully to Greece while continuing his research on early Mediterranean Divination rituals, specifically the Oracle of Delphi.
A wealthy fisherman in the town had a daughter, and she was the most lovely woman Cuchulainn had ever seen. Alastrina Mykonos was hardly the typical Greek beauty, all pale-skinned and silver-blonde. She was the rare product of a Muggle – the fisherman – and a veela who had deigned to save him when his boat crashed amid the stones on an isolated stretch of Trojan coast. And Cuchulainn, well – he couldn’t resist. He dropped his research to about the business of winning her hand.
In time, he did. He loved Alastrina, and she loved him. They married in Thebes and got terrible sunburns during the reception. She loved him, and said she’d follow him anywhere. She didn’t think he’d take that so literally, though.
Alastrina regretted those words when Cuchulainn spirited her away from sunny southern Greece to brooding, chilly Scotland for a ‘holiday’. She would have left him once he declared they were staying in Edinburgh if he hadn’t gotten her up the chuff just the week before they left. To this day, she insists he did it on purpose. Somehow.
Little Philomenes was the glue of their marriage for many years, but the bond cracked soon enough.
Phil’s parents divorced when he was six. Alastrina went back to Greece, Cuchulainn holed up in the huge oak library he called a house and perfumed himself with firewhiskey. They were civil, talking via pensive and flooing their boy between Greece and Scotland from time to time. As Phil got older, his father stopped accompanying him to Delphi. On his 11th birthday, Alastrina sent him a single gift: a strand of veela hair. His grandmother’s.
For most of his Hogwarts career, Philomenes was a model Ravenclaw. Studious, intellectual, witty. A good disguise, more than anything. He started stealing from his fellow students that first year, then from his father, then from Hogsmeade shops. The kleptomania only worsened as he aged.
Those first few years were also the time he displayed his father’s hunger for learning. He devoured the library at Kecklepenny Manor, and then worked on eating up the Hogwarts Library too. Little Phil was obsessed with the Restricted Section – this was where his insomnia started, perhaps, staying up all night reading dangerous books by wandlight.
Philomenes was successful in all his studies, but he excelled most in Transmogrification and DADA. Defense Against the Dark Arts inspired him to do some outside research, then “research”.
He fell into Knockturn Alley like a child in a candystore – except he was a 6th year with bad teeth perusing shrunken heads instead of candy. He rented a room at the Black Chimera instead of spending holidays with Daddy. He volunteered at Borgin & Burkes, accepting payment in the form of knowledge and the occasional stolen artifact. He was fired when he tried stealing a cursed ring – it burnt two of his fingers off at the knuckle.
He stole a fistful of rare blossoms from the Hogwarts hothouse his seventh year, trying to win over an unsavory apothecary into hiring him. And he was hired, just…not for what he’d originally hoped. Phil became the apothecary’s thieving errand boy, snatching reagents from Hogwarts and other magical shops, and being sent on wild goose chases across England for rare flora.
Even with his many odd jobs, Phil managed to graduate with outstanding grades (and a spotty behavioral record)…thanks to his newfound dependence on adrenaline spells and acuity potions. He visited his father for the first time in three years that summer, and steadily stole a huge portion of Cuchulainn’s most ancient and dangerous books over those months. Philomenes hasn’t spoken to him since.
As the apothecary aged, he depended more and more on Philomenes to procure his rarest reagents. No longer having school to eat up time, Phil gladly took assignments that dragged him all across Europe hunting down illegal plants and endangered beasties. Before he knew it, his enthusiasm and intellect (and naiveté) got him smuggling contracts with other unsavory Knockturn Alley proprietors.
These days, Philomenes is living in a small flat above a cursed garment shop. It’s cheap because most people don’t like sleeping with screaming dresses downstairs, but it’s not like Phil sleeps anyway. He runs a small antique bookshop out of his flat.
