Full Name: Ezra Alexander Sprout
Nicknames: Ez
Birthdate: March 30th, 1864
Current Age: Twenty-Seven Years
Occupation: Dept. MLE Investigator Trainee
Reputation: 10.
Residence: South Bartonburg, Hogsmeade
Hogwarts House: Hufflepuff Alumnus ('82)
Wand: Maple, 13⅔ inches, Unicorn hair, Slightly bendy
Blood Status: Halfblood
Social Class: Middle Class
Family:

Hector Sprout, Father [1833]
Philippa Sprout (née —), Mother [1841]
Joy — (née Sprout), Sister [1868]
Lydia Sprout, Sister [1872]
Beatrice Sprout, Sister [1878]

Appearance:

Average in most ways except for height, Ezra rarely relies on his appearance to earn him any favors. He is neither thin nor particularly broad, but he's always been in decent shape thanks to his very physical career. You wouldn't know it, though—his coats are purposefully baggy and obscure his shape. He does this in part because he thinks it makes it more difficult to be recognized on the job, but also because it's more comfortable.

He has dark brown eyes. His hair is a light brown and lightens to a darker blond in the sunlight, but only during the height of the summer. He styles it fashionably, but takes very little care in ensuring that it stays styled during the day. During formal parties he'll wear it with gel or pomades, but he hates any product that doesn't allow him to freely run his fingers through his hair.

He wields his wand with his right hand. His play-by is Evan Roderick.

History:

The Picture Perfect Family
From the moment she married, my mother had it all planned out. Everything about her like was extraordinarily ordinary, just how she liked it: a brick house near the sea in Dover, a small garden she tended to on the weekends and bragged about on weekdays, and husband who had a perfectly respectable (but obscenely boring) job in the Ministry of Magic as an office employee in the Department of Magical Education. Everything was perfect—or seemed perfect, until I came along on a rare sunny day in March of 1864 and she decided that life had never been nor could be any more perfect.

I don't remember my years as an only child, but my father's friends never let me forget—even as I grew into a young man—what a loud, eloquent toddler I was. I always picked up on big words, used them improperly, but spoke them with such conviction that nobody bothered correcting me. (A lack of confidence, apparently, had never been one of my shortcomings.)

The earliest memory I have is that of Joy's birth in 1868. Mother had always told me what a warm, sunny day it was when I was born, and I remember this day being the exact opposite: cold, dark, and with storms too harsh to spend the time waiting for my sister's arrival outside in the garden. I remember being seated by the window when my father walked up and announced that I had a baby sister. I was protective of her from the beginning—it's what I'd been told I was expected to do. Love, protect, and guide.... but mostly protect.

And from then on, that was my role. My place in life—Older brother, mummy's boy, papa's pride. I played my role well. I did well in my studies under a tutor I shared with a few of the neighborhood boys, and I made friends with the Swann family children, whose mother had been friends with my mother since they were children. We went to quidditch matches (my Papa supported to Falcons, so I did, too) and we vacationed in northern France every other year, where we visited my mother's sister who had married a French wizard. By the time my sister Lydia was born in 1872, I'd already shown my first sign of magic and had perfected my toy broomstick riding technique. It was a picture-perfect childhood.

School: The Perfect Distraction

In September of 1875 I packed my trunk and boarded the Hogwarts Express. I wasn't alone; [Lucian] Swann came with me, along with his younger but less notable sister Sylvie and his older brother, Everett, who I always admired for no other reason than being an older boy who didn't seem to mind my company. I envied their family, not because they were much wealthier or lived in a nicer house, but because they were so close in age to each other while my sisters were years younger than me.

I was a Hufflepuff, of course. It seems like an obvious pick now—the drive for justice, the whole "finding self-worth in being the hardest worker" thing that may or may not be healthy—but at the time I was devastated by the pick. My father had been a Ravenclaw and my mother a Gryffindor, so Hufflepuff hadn't been an option I'd even considered. I got over it, though. Most people who get a different house than they'd expected do. I felt better when Lucian followed me into Hufflepuff a minute later, and I'd fully embraced my Hufflepuff-iness by the time the first quidditch match of the year rolled around.

Speaking of quidditch—I did try out. I did, and I failed, and I never tried again, because I realized quickly how early quidditch players had to wake up and because my classwork consumed my waking hours by the time the year got underway. (But probably more of the former than the latter. I was never a morning person.)

First year came and went, and so did second year, but the summer between second and third year is when things began changing in my home. We'd always lived in Dover, and we always had our little brick house and our garden and the docks we played on in the summers, and then one day we didn't. "Hogsmeade" is what they called it—an all-magical village close to school, which seemed exciting until I realized it meant the end of our trips to Diagon Alley and the Hogwarts Express ride. Now we lived in South Bartonburg and bought all of my supplies on High Street, and in September took carriages to school instead. It was dreadfully unexciting, and was only made tolerable by the presence of the Swann family, who'd also made the move.

Then it was off to third year. None of the electives seemed that interesting—Ancient Runes, Arithmancy? What were those anyways? I'm still not sure what the classwork consisted of, because I opted for Muggle Studies instead. At least it seemed relatively useful to know what the non-magical population of Britain was up to. It was in the second half of my third year, in early 1878, when Beatrice was born.

And it all went downhill from there.

The Not-So-Secret Affair

My father cheated. I don't know with who, and I never wanted to know, but mother made enough of a fuss about it that we all knew. I was just preparing to begin my fifth year in 1879—(no prefect badge, but plenty of OWLs to worry about)—when father came home with a bouquet of flowers and mother had the maid move all of her belongings from the bedroom she shared with my father to the other bedroom. I remember her saying she was lucky he didn't make enough money for her to demand a separate living space altogether, that it was the only thing that saved him from a very public embarrassment.

Only it did become a very public embarrassment, because subtlety had never been mother's forte.

The Swanns knew first, and then it spread to half the wives in Bartonburg, and suddenly my father was receiving all sorts of looks when he took me out to purchase the last of my school supplies. Looks of scorn from the women, a mix of sympathy and disapproval from some of the men. Some even clapped him on the shoulder and told him she'd get over it. But I knew my mother—she never would. She never did. And there went whatever hopes I had for a happy marriage of my own, because from there on every interaction between my mother and father bred such tension that the only appropriate response was to take a walk through the neighborhood.

At least nobody brought it up to me when I returned to school. Maybe they didn't know. If they did, they didn't care to say anything.

Acceptance

My fifth year was otherwise uneventful. School was uneventful. OWLs were approaching quickly, and after talking to my head of house I made the decision to become an auror (a popular choice, he'd told me, but one that most don't actually follow through on). I began studying with the Swanns, but surprisingly it wasn't [Lucian] that was most useful, but his younger sister Sylvie. If only she wasn't so annoying—for someone so tiny she was a force to be reckoned with, and I enjoyed pushing her buttons when I had a chance.

The year came to an end, and so did my OWL examinations. The next summer was similar to the previous—lots of arguing, lots of spending time outside to get away from the arguing. When my OWL results returned I'd scored the grades required to continue the classes the Auror Office required of their training program recruits. Sixth year came and went, and so did seventh year, and by the time I'd written my last NEWT exam I was itching to get out of the family home.

Except I couldn't. Not right away, at least. I had to wait for my scores, and only then was I able to enroll in the Auror Training Program—and move into a shared flat in Bartonburg with one of the boys in the year above me.

A Life to Call My Own

A life at the Ministry meant the remnants of my old life faded away. I had dinner with my family twice a week, and every time my parents began arguing I made sure to skip dinner the next time. It was my way of punishing them, I guess, but I've since stopped doing that. I tell myself I have to be there for my sisters. Lydia went off to Hogwarts a year after I left Hogwarts, and by the time I became a full-fledged aruror in 1885 Joy was readying herself for her seventh year. I didn't see as much of the Swann family as I had in year prior; the auror program took up most of my time, and being an auror was even more taxing on my physical and emotional energy.

I spent six long years in the Auror Office. I like to think that I was a valued member of the team, even if I didn't lead in the number of criminals caught, nor did I spend the most time on the field. Eventually I found myself wishing that I had more of a hand in the investigative side of things. While we worked alongside the investigative scene, I found myself wishing on numerous occasions that I could have stayed in the office to help piece together the mysteries that kept me up at night.

When the chance came to become an investigative trainee in 1891, I took it.

Personality:

A dreamer who wants to make a change in the world. A little dramatic. Guards his deepest feelings. Resentful of those who have wronged him. Career-oriented. Distrusting. Hardworking. Likes to believe that people are inherently good. Compassionate. Cemented in his own way of thinking.

Other:
Sample Roleplay Post: —
Name: Bree
Age: 22

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