In-Character
Full Name: Armel Koch; Ahmet Koç (back in Germany) Nicknames: n/a
Birthdate: June 16th, 1863
Current Age: 25
Occupation: Head Chef of McPadraic Estate
Reputation: 10 – currently, Armel is known as a quiet, German-educated fellow who immigrated from either France or Germany (depending on where your hearsay comes from). It is a delicate veneer.
Residence: Hogsmeade – McPadraic estate servant quarters
Hogwarts House: Unknown
Wand: Lebanon cedar, 11", sturdy, mermaid hair
Blood Status: Muggleborn
Social Class: Working
Family:
Paternal grandparents
Grandfather, goat-herder family
Grandmother, hazelnut farmer family
Maternal grandparents
Adoptive Grandfather, farmer family
Adoptive Grandmother, merchant family
Parents
Raif (49) – Father
Verda (48) – Mother
Siblings
[W] = wizard/witch
[M] = muggle
[W] Yasemin, firstborn (31, February birthday)
[W] Kumru, thirdborn (24)
[W] Ferah (18)
[M] Nalan (14)
[W] Dursun (13)
[M] Naciye (12)
[W] Nazmiye (12)
[W] Ayla (8)
[M] Half-Sister (2)
[M] Half-Sister (1)
Appearance:
Armel is far from a towering figure at 5’5”, though he certainly cuts a strong form under his kitchen robes from his early life as a goat herder. He has curly, black hair and dark brown eyes, as well as a middling skintone that suggests a few generations spent under the sun. His cheeks are angular, and his face somewhat squared.
He dresses well for his station, considering the hefty pay the status of a ‘French’ chef commands.
Armel uses his right hand, awkwardly, for his wand. His left hand is dominant but he was trained to use his right.
History:
1863: Ahmet was born on a cool June evening, waking his mother up from a fitful sleep. Anne (Mother) was not amused.
1866: Ahmet’s second sister, Kumru, is born. Neat. He’s a middle child now.
1866: Mean grandparents come by to yell at anne, far from the first time. Büyükanne (Grandma) takes a seat in her favorite chair to do so, and it sets on fire. No one can explain or figure out how that happened. Baba (Father) teases her about what she had for lunch before sitting down from hereon out.
1868: Ahmet is still 4 in February when Yasemin, the eldest sibling, turns 11. A strange woman visits them out in bumfuck nowhere on their goat and hazelnut farm, strangely dressed. They figure she’s lost, until she explains why she’s there. Then, they figure she’s just crazy.
However, come late August, she’s back to collect Yasemin for some mysterious school that apparently takes girls out on Goat Steppes to do Allah Knew What. Allah Knew What still sounded like a better prospect than waiting to get pillaged and raped by Bulgarian uprisings, Ottoman retaliation, or fuckall knew at this rate.
Anne cries a lot and but tries to hide it. (Spoiler alert: she fails.) Yasemin comes back for Ramadan just in time for Anne’s waking up cry session. She’s relieved for 50 whole minutes before putting Yasemin back to work in the fields.
Yasemin reluctantly shows 5-year-old Ahmet what she’s doing on the condition that he help her finish her homework in the process. He’s not very good at it, but she lets him anyway on the new condition that he distract now 3-year-old Kumru.
1869: Public education is made compulsory for all (muggle) children of the Ottoman Empire - including girls. Plenty of peasants miss or ignore this, including this family. As the Wizarding World tends to be some scholarly steps ahead of Muggle society, the Ottoman wizarding school is mainly focused on expanding outreach and competing with Durmstrang (which tends to snap up the least challenging/challenged students).
Kumru shows first signs of magic.
1871: Ferah, third sister, is born.
Ahmet begs Yasemin to bring home books from Constantinople, and retreats to them regularly in his off time. He reads to Kumru. And Ferah, technically. To? Over? Same thing.
Baba sees his children’s increasing literacy with some resentment, growing colder toward them.
Yasemin gets odd jobs and doesn’t come back over vacations. She sends some money back now and then, and writes rosy letters to Ahmet about Constantinople
1874: Ahmet turns 11. He’s off to the school in Constantinople. He writes to Kumru and beseeches her to read to Ferah.
Ahmet has the head start of having
1875: Nalan, 4th sister, is born.
Yasemin graduates in June, but doesn’t come back. The money also stops coming.
Baba takes it out on Ahmet. Ahmet tells Yasemin they miss her in letters but doesn’t go into detail.
Kumru is starting to look more like Baba every day, whereas Ahmet is basically a brown-eyed, black-haired male version of his mother. Baba suddenly favors her. Ahmet starts to resent him.
Ahmet’s second year has him excelling in herbology. At this point he is probably closer to plants than peers.
1876: Dursun, first brother, is born. Less pressure, but there’s still a weird grief about losing his special spot as Only Son.
Of age, Ahmet tries to find (legal) work in Constantinople but has no luck and goes back home for the summer.
Yasemin writes him, informing him that she has found a job with Ottoman’s Wizarding authorities. He’s glad for her, but it’s bittersweet.
The school begins an exchange student program with Germany, though the program is designed with already affluent Turks in mind. It also only allows boys, which Kumru is not happy about.
1877: Twin sisters Naciye and Nazmiye are born.
Ahmet gets a job in Constantinople, which pays better than farm work. He saves what he can and doubles down on his studies in hopes of getting in on the exchange program.
Ahmet’s father is conscripted into the Russo-Turkish war, much to their family’s horror.
The lots are drawn – Ahmet is selected as exemplary for herbology, and wins the privilege of being an exchange student! However, he has to buy his own things in Germany and pay his own way. Ahmet ends up begging Yasemin for money, who surprisingly comes through but tells him to pay it back.
Wow. Textbook German is way easier than actually fucking talking. If Ahmet wasn’t quiet before (he was), he is now. The plants are his best friends for new reasons.
Weird Turkish stereotypes means he’s alternately menacing and sexy. Whatevs.
1878: Bulgaria’s de-facto independence from Ottoman Empire is bloody.
Ahmet is especially careful in how he interacts with women to assuage German suspicion. Thusly, he ends up noticing an English-German boy that he wants to hormones- er, get to know better. Starts learning English to try and impress him. It doesn’t work.
He is really smitten by the lesser amount of war in Germany and his general idealization of European boys. (Also ta$ty, higher rate ℳarks.) Ahmet decides a northern life is the life for him.
He gets work in a German middle class Wizarding household’s kitchen over the break. It’s grueling, but pays better than Constantinople or the farm.
Ahmet writes Kumru often. In his 5th year of wizarding studies (and 2nd in Germany), he works hard but struggles. Meanwhile, he pursues connections and looks for work suitable for women and children in addition to his own. A Wizard Frenchman, Mr. Baudelaire, who’s a friend of a friend’s dad is looking for help at an upcoming restaurant in Hogsmeade.
Baba comes back from the war, alive but sans an arm.
1879: Ahmet drops out this year after learning of his father’s reduced ability to work, and takes Mr. Baudelaire’s offer.
Yasemin ends up taking Ferah and Nalan off their parents’ hands, where 8-year-old Ferah ends up doing a lot of the ‘parenting’. Kumru takes maidwork during the school breaks, ‘tutoring’ (lol doing rich kids’ homework for them) during the year, and sends money home.
Ahmet writes Kumru in both Turkish and broken English now, determined to find a life for her in Hogsmeade. He keeps in contact with both German and Turkish friends/acquaintances as well, especially viable future husbands for Kumru.
1880:
Both Ferah and Brother show first signs of magic, and Yasemin writes to inform him of this (and that also he still owes her that money).
Ahmet is able to start sending some money home, which goes much further there than in Hogsmeade.
Mr. Baudelaire has started calling him ‘Armel’ instead of ‘Ahmet’ all of a sudden. He refrains from comment on it.
1889: After years of working in a now popular French Wizarding restaurant,
In a bid to increase his own reputation, Mr. Baudelaire offers Armel’s service to a famous auror family whom is well-established in the upper class. He also heavily implies Armel is French-born and raised. Armel loses the privacy of his own apartment that he’s enjoyed, but also receives quite the pay hike. It is quite the adjustment to make, and only time will tell how well...
Personality: From rural Anatolia to the heart of Constantinople, off to Germany and then England, Armel has adapted time and time again. He changed his language. He changed his name. He changed the way he talked, and who he talked to.
Like a tree bursting out between pavers, he twisted as needed – and now he’s old enough that he has started to take his own shape.
Only time can tell if that shape will be what it takes to survive Hogsmeade.
Other: Armel: the French chef who speaks every language but French. He spent 3 years in Constantinople studying Turkish and Persian magic, which entailed various Turkic and Arabic languages. He then studied in Germany, in German – which entailed the sort of magic more common in Wizarding London, including Germanic and Latin. He then dropped out with a few phrases of English under his belt, which expanded throughout just shy of ten years working at a French restaurant in Hogsmeade, where he learned about enough French in the kitchen to know what was being ordered and when he was being sworn at.
He also knows a couple sentences of his mother’s tongue, but has no idea what language that actually is.
Out-of-Character
Name: Of Men & MonstersAge: 29
Contact: PM, Cbox, Discord
Other Characters: Marmaduke Warbeck (Main Account)
How did you hear about us?: RPG Initiative
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