In-Character

Full Name: Ashley Allen
Nicknames: None, currently
Birthdate: August 24, 1881
Current Age: 11 Years
Gender: Male
Occupation: Student
Reputation: 9
Residence: Broad Marsh Slums, Nottingham
Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw
Wand: Hazel, 10 3/4", swishy, dragon heartstring
Blood Status: Muggleborn
Social Class: Working
Family:

• John Allen (d. 1890) - Ashley's father, formerly a lamplighter.
  
• Mary Edwards Allen - Ashley's mother, a spinner at a cotton mill in Nottingham.
  
• Susan Allen - Ashley's older sister, also a spinner at the cotton mill
  

Appearance: A boy of average height, with sapphire blue eyes and a shock of straight, raven black hair that contrasted the fair complexion. As a child, Ashley stood four feet, three-and-a-quarter inches tall. Right-hand dominant, after entering Hogwarts in the first year class of 1892-1893, he wielded a hazelwood wand. Ashley wears second-hand clothing, including his school robes. His Muggle attire consists of knee pants that are kept up by a pair of suspenders, with a coat worn over the shirt.
History: The second child of a working poor couple, Ashley grew up on the streets of the slums in Nottingham's city center. Originally a family of four crowded into a small terraced house. His father was a lamplighter, murdered on the streets of Nottingham when Ashley was 9 years old, which only exacerbated the financial situation of the small family. Both his mother and sister worked as spinners at the cotton mill. In 1891, despite Parliament's passage of the Factory Act prohibiting employment under the age of 11, Ashley started working as a doffer when his mother lied about his age so that they could have an additional source of income. Thus, it was a blow to the family when a man with an owl showed up at their door on Ashley's 11th birthday and explained that Ashley was a wizard. Under the terms of the First Year Scholarship, Ashley's attendance at Hogwart's is free, though even second-hand materials put a dent in the family's finances. Any future he has at Hogwart's beyond the first year will depend entirely on his grades, a fact that the Sorting Hat may have been swayed by when determining to place the Muggle-born street urchin into Ravenclaw.

An abbreviated timeline of significant events includes:

• [1881] - Born in Nottingham, United Kingdom
  
  
• [1890] - Age 9. Ashley's father, John Allen, is murdered at night on the streets of Nottingham.
  
  
• [1891] - Age 10. Ashley starts work at a cotton mill as a doffer and sweep for wages of 4 shillings and 2 pence.
  
  
• [School Year '92-93] Age 11. Begins first year at Hogwarts under the First Year Scholarship. Sorted into Ravenclaw.
  

Personality: Creative, inquisitive, and intuitive, Ashley is like a sponge soaking in whatever environment he is placed in. His contemplative approach may give the appearance of being shy or introverted when the fact is that Ashley tends to study the environment or situation. Raised in a traditional household, where children were to be seen and not heard, Ashley tends not to speak unless given an invitation to. Ashley fears returning back to the life he came from, a future in a cotton mill or as a lamplighter, but he also fears that his being at Hogwart's is only putting more pressure on his family's finances, even with the scholarship.

Other:

• Notes on Ashley's wand: As hazel wands bond with their owner, but dragon heartstrings do not, Ashley's wand is second-hand in the sense that the core was recycled from a used wand. Given the qualities of both hazel wood and dragon heartstrings, Ashley's wand responds and reflects his emotional state. Those who come into contact with it may feel the emotions absorbed by it.
  
• Astrological Sign: Virgo (Saturn in retrograde)
  
• Theme Song: "Back Down (Acoustic)" by Bob Moses
  

Sample Roleplay Post:
The twilight filtered through the long, narrow windows that framed the tower's dormitories.

In the moonlight, the room seemed bathed in silver, as the blues deepened into the shadows that were broken up by the glint from the bronze accents on the four-post beds that filled the circular dwelling. The noise and chatter from the common room trickled in from lower in the tower. Though the moon outside continued its gradual journey apace, the hour had not yet come for lights out. It was not quiet, but a soften din of conversation as people studied, traveled to or from the showers, or else entertained each other with games or debate.

In the tower, the two concepts were often one and the same.

The boy was sitting on the sill of one of the large windows, his back up against the cold stone and his knees drawn up as he cradled a sketchbook in his lap. Steadying the leather-bound book with his left hand, in his right he held a piece of charcoal. Black lines scratched against the rough texture of the paper, delicately placed with careful strokes as the child forgot all about the world inside the tower. The studies, the reptitious and rote recitations of all manner of things that defied the world that he had known before coming to this castle, all forgotten in a moment in which the boy fell, instead, into a world of paper and charcoal.

An amorphous idea that slowly began to take shape with the stroke of a hand.

A boy from the streets of Broad Marsh, a doffer from a cotton mill in Nottingham, it was easy to be overwhelmed by any one of the magical things here at Hogwarts. A single book, a single chapter, a single examination seemed to challenge the rules and the world that he had expected to find.

And he had to be a fast learner, or else this year at Hogwarts would be his last.

But here, in this world, in this simple act, he could escape all of that. For a moment, the walls of the world -- both muggle and magical -- fell away and Ashley could remember how to breathe. Let his mind recover before he would go to bed and then start the day anew.

And then do it all again tomorrow.

Out-of-Character

Name: Bounce
Age: 40+
Contact: Discord, PM
Other Characters: If any
How did you hear about us?: Jordan (writer of Millie Potts)

The following 1 user Likes Ashley Allen's post:1 user Likes Ashley Allen's post
   Lucas Finch

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-Charles Dickens

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