Nicknames: ‘Professor’.
Birthdate: 3rd January, 1840
Current Age: 50 Years
Occupation: Researcher & Author
Reputation: 7
Largely respectable, but also notoriously known as an anti-werewolf scholar who thinks all werewolves, non-humans and halfbreeds should die. Slightly ~unhinged since his wife died in ‘79.Residence: Wellingtonshire, Hogsmeade | Country estate: Belcourt Park, Warwickshire.
Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw
Wand: Ebony, 12 3/4”, dragon heartstring, unyielding.
Blood Status: Pureblood
Social Class: Upper
Family:
Stephen Picardy | Father | 1803
_____ Picardy née ____ | Mother | 18xx
Laurence Picardy | Brother | 1837 - 1869
_____ Picardy née ____ | Wife | 184x - 1879
Crispin Picardy | Son | 1879
Appearance: Standing at 5’8”, with non-descript sandy hair (beginning to grey a little) and steely blue eyes, Emerett does not particularly stand out in a crowd. Though he does some hunting and horse-riding still, he is not nearly as fit as he once was, for his days are rather more sedentary now, often spent writing in his study or sitting back with a cigar. Traditionally well-dressed, he tends to sport a neat moustache to look more distinguished, needs reading glasses when he works, and when out walking often carries his wand in a walking stick, not because he actually needs a cane for support, but because it is a) an old family heirloom and b) useful for impatient tapping. He is right-handed, and has a few old scars and scratches from one thing or another.
History:
1840 | The Picardy family, said to have distant origins in the French region of Picardy but having resided in Britain for the last few hundred years, are an upper class family like any other. In January, Emerett is born, a second son.
1846 | It is an unremarkable childhood, though not an unhappy one. Between the days with a tutor and running around the grounds like a hellion, Emerett shows his first sign of magic when made so deathly upset that a chandelier crashes onto his brother, who deserves it.
1851 | Emerett finally follows his brother to Hogwarts, where he is sorted without fanfare into Ravenclaw. He excels immediately in his classes, a quick practical learner and interested in all kinds of theory. Social success is a secondary aim, but he does make some friends.
1853 | He adds Care of Magical Creatures and Divination to his classload, the latter out of a skeptical curiosity.
1855 | In fifth year, he makes Prefect, which boosts his confidence almost to arrogance.
1856 | After excellent OWL results, Emerett chooses DADA, Potions, Transfiguration, Charms, Care of Magical Creatures, History of Magic and Herbology for NEWTs.
1858 | When he graduates in May, Emerett takes to the Ministry to forge a career with flair - he is a second son, after all, and wants to make his name, which is why he throws himself into Auror training. It’s not all hexes and brawls at that level, after all; one needs to have the intelligence to prove themselves.
1861 | He succeeds in training and becomes a fully-fledged Auror.
1866 | After a few years, the novelty wears off, and - having taken interest in a particular case - Emerett transfers over to the Werewolf Capture Unit, where having such a specific objective will allow him to hone his tracking skills further. Here begins his induction into the gritty reality of lycanthropy, and with all the inherent danger of the job and the trail of destruction left in every werwolf’s wake, it becomes evident that werewolves really are the scum of the wizarding world.
1869 | His elder brother, Laurence, dies in a splinching accident. Saddening, truly. Although, on a practical level - he hates to say it, but - this does make him him the sole heir.
1870 | Having put away several werewolves in his time - even one of their own colleagues who’d gotten caught in the fray - and risked his death more times than he can count, Emerett decides enough is enough, and settles in to a safer seat on the Ministry’s research committee, where he spends his days researching studies, compiling information, and writing reports. He prefers the academic freedoms here to the hum-drum bureaucracy of the wider DR&CMC where he might have made a career, though his specialty nevertheless becomes papers on the nature of beings, beasts and halfbreeds.
1871 | The job change was a useful one (and his brother’s death certainly catapulted him to eligibility, if a more stable occupation had not already) because Emerett has his eye on a nice well-bred debutante. The courtship is a smooth one, and they marry soon after.
1876 | The particular success of his latest research paper grants him the honorary title in the wizarding world of ‘professor’. (Faris Spavin’s administration is clearly a fan of his anti-halfbreed angles.)
1877 | Emerett’s father’s memory goes after the trauma of the muggle riots, and he becomes a permanent patient in St. Mungo’s. Emerett sells the London house and buys a property in Hogsmeade instead, where he does most of his work; his mother remains at the country house, though he and his wife visit her often.
1879 | She spends her confinements in the countryside, too. Finally, after years of trying and failing, Emerett’s wife manages to give birth to a child who is not stillborn. A male heir, too! The boy is named Crispin. Their happiness is to be short-lived: two months later, tragedy strikes. His wife goes missing from a turn around the gardens of the country house, and come dark, is still nowhere to be found. Out searching the grounds, Emerett finds her just before dawn, trussed up in ropes and mauled by a werewolf. He knows the marks well, realises this has been set up, knows exactly which werewolf has orchestrated this. Emerett came closer to catching him than anyone had, years ago; it could not have been hard to track him down. His wife knows the stakes. Even as the mediwizards arrive, she refuses any kind of treatment. She says it so he does not have to: better to die than knowingly become a monster.
1880 | And here’s - public opinion holds - where he loses it! Emerett abandons Crispin in the care of his mother and a host of nurses and nannies, and instead spends a year and a half on a sabbatical, during which he travels around Eastern Europe, doing research into beasts and beings and allowing his own feelings to ferment into a sort of monomania.
1882 | He comes back calmer, one might say. He starts attending Church of Magical Jesus services, softer towards some of his previous prejudices - blood purity, for example - and spends a lot of time removed from the world, sifting through research and writing in his study. He still doesn’t spend a great deal of time with his son.
1883 | News of a werewolf attack in St. Mungo’s (where his father is a permanent patient, no less) sends Emerett into waves of fury. The creature shouldn’t have been brought in to be treated in the first place; to do so was to endanger lives, and so it cost them. He starts thinking more seriously about the werewolf problem again.
1884 | Emerett is not at all a fan of the new progressive Minister, and starts moving in social circles a little more often than he used to, looking for ways to forge political connections and lobby for his long-standing ideas for hardline reform.
1886 | Publishes a book. Still doesn’t care much about his young son.
1887 | This year the Hogwarts board of governors push through a much welcome change when it comes to halfbreeds. In September, Minister Urquart’s daughter is outed as a werewolf. Emerett thinks this is sweet justice for the Minister’s failings. Pity that the next Minister elected is far too liberal, as well - it is an utter outrage when the halfbreed ban is repealed.
1888 | Another publicised werewolf attack in London in July this year is just the ticket to release his full work on the subject, Lupine Lawlessness, that Emerett hopes will be the incitement of a real policy change. It is not, but it does well (read: is controversial enough to make a splash) for a while, and does nothing to quiet his rage. His name is fairly well-known now, which grants him occasional odd looks - but the real problem, in his mind, is that even so no one else seems nearly as interested - or as horrified - by the werewolf problem as he does.
1890 | Still, Emerett has by no means given up. Indeed, Marlowe Forfang - a more recent name on the academic scene - starts cropping up out of nowhere with defensive pieces on werewolves and with all sorts of overwrought ideas on how ‘research’ should be done; Emerett hasn’t even met the man, and is hardly about to give him any credit for being so cocky. Still, it keeps him busy planning his next attack. Speaking of attacks, he has grown a little paranoid about his renown, and the possibility of violent retaliation from all those people - ‘people’ - Emerett thinks should die. So he has hired a research assistant to do the legwork for him, the going out and about and poking wolves with a stick, that sort of thing - and if the young man is from a strange family with no obvious references, then all the better, Emerett thinks. He might be perfectly placed as a bodyguard to stand in between Emerett and his enemies, and Mr. Umbernauld can’t be especially picky about what he’s asked to do, can he? Hopefully he won’t mind taking whatever measures are necessary.
In other news, his son is nearing Hogwarts age, which means Emerett has had to remember his existence. Fearing that Crispin might grow up to be a disappointment (or perhaps is already), and realising that he doesn’t have a spare if he should die, Emerett considers the possibility of remarrying. You know, if an army of werewolves doesn’t come to murder him in his bed first.
Personality: Two words: confirmation bias. Not only in his research, but across every aspect of his life, Emerett is very good at proving himself right and finding evidence that supports his way of things. He is a firm believer in his own powers of reasoning and deduction, and will dismiss most anything that does not fit neatly into his worldview. This is not to say his opinions are always fixed; just that if he does not find something affirming or otherwise of use, he will dispense of it entirely. That said, he isn’t the only one who is good at glossing over what they prefer not to see: the rest of society does that too. Emerett can be just genial enough in most settings and most topics, light and conversational and funny, that people can be convinced he’s a bit odd, but largely harmless; if he comes across as a bit slimy or suddenly harsh, that his eccentricities and less palatable opinions are a product of grief, that the poor man was slightly unhinged by the death of his wife; that his hardline stance against non-humans and half-breeds is ‘eccentricity’ rather than dangerous extremism. It is the easiest way to not take him seriously. Let them think what they will: to him, there is little as important as this crusade of his. He can grin and bear his way through society well enough, seeming even mild-mannered and reserved, but press one of his buttons and he is a bundle of impassioned hatred and fear and extreme paranoia, the hero of his own little revenge tragedy.
Other:
— A member of the CMJ since his wife’s passing, which has markedly softened his purism. He has nothing in the least against muggleborns. It’s only werewolves, non-humans and halfbreeds who are abominations.
— Has a selection of hounds and some horses in the country.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:
Examples of his most-lauded papers, written during his tenure on the Ministry’s Research Committee.
— ‘Werewolves Undercover: History of the Werewolf in Wizarding Society’ (1871)
Tracing attitudes to werewolves-in-hiding from Roman times to the present.
— ‘The Savagery of Hags, A Study: Diet, Dwelling Spaces and Dark Magic’ (1873)
Research into the characteristics and lifestyles of the hag, concluding that hags are too primitive a species to ever comfortably co-exist in a civilised society.
— ‘The Gringotts Question: Why We Still Trust Goblins with Our Gold’ (1874)
What traits make goblins prone to hoarding valuable items; the unresolved past of goblin violence rebellions; how they are trying to secretly gain supremacy and want wizardkind subjugated.
— ‘Corruption of a Species: The Dangers of Inter-Species Breeding’ (1876)
Research into how half-breeds are disproportionately influenced by their non-human parent and how these effects can be underlying generations later, and how this intermingling of species engenders a breeding ground for immorality.
Independently published full-length books.
— Creatures of the Caverns: The Continued Threat To Civilisation (1886)
An overview study of physical characteristics, behavioural patterns, and the lack of moral faculties of a number of species, including vampires, veela and hags. Emerett expressly sent copies of this to the Board of Governors to lobby for the half-breed ban that was later implemented.
— Lupine Lawlessness: Why Lycanthropes Don’t Deserve to Live (1888)
More extreme than his previous anti-werewolf propaganda, this book is a lengthy treatise on why werewolves are monsters and should be put down. While it deals firstly with research into physical characteristics and behavioural traits in the full moon form, the latter half of the book treats their criminal behaviour and loss of judgement, and uses case studies of past werewolf disasters to support a case that every full-moon transformation carries long-term negative and irreparable traits into a werewolf’s ‘human’ state, not least with a permanent loss of moral sense.
— [As Yet Untitled] (upcoming).
His magnum opus, a personal manifesto for the future of Britain. It draws upon all his previous research to form a more overarching theory - both scientific and socio-political - about how all non-humans and half-breeds will bring society to ruin if drastic action is not taken. Pleasant stuff. A work-in-progress.
Sample Roleplay Post:
Age: 25
