HP: Terry Boot of Ravenclaw
terry boot
GENRE: Harry Potter
ARCHETYPE: Fantasy nerd. (And think, he'll probably make it his living, too.)
REPRESENTATIVE JOURNAL ENTRIES: ONE
REPRESENTATIVE ROLEPLAY LOGS: ONE
PERSPECTIVE ESSAYS: Forthcoming!
NAME: Terence David Boot
DATE OF BIRTH, AGE: 23 March 1980, 17 in Deathly Hallows, would-be 27 (almost 28) as of 11 March 2008
AFFILIATIONS: Dumbledore's Army, those of mixed-blood parentage, Ravenclaw student.
PROFESSION: Student. Perhaps, one would suspect, forever.
PERSONALITY: Even after four years of proper socialisation, it is still hard to beat the old tricks out of the dog. Terence Boot's first impression is still that of the shy and retiring type, quiet in his movements and posture, but ever-considerate of whom he is meeting an individual for the first time. He still keeps the same ritual when meeting people: keeping to groups, he will often feign interest in his toes in order to avoid the unfortuntately unavoidable until, beet red and embarrassed, he is forced to offer his name and his hand. The difference in his counterance, of course, is that this is not an everlasting aspect of Terry's personality any more. Where as perpetual blushing and stammering were at the very core of prepubescent Terry, with each growth spurt came a surge of bravado in his dealings with his fellow witches and wizards. Among his closest confidants, he is capable of animation and passion within his many discussions; with less-familiar individuals, Terry is quite able to keep a polite, if subdued, discussion afloat. Still, his best gift is at listening; for many of his friends, he will do so for hours without complaint, frequently opting out of actual advice with the simple phrase of, "Oh, but I'd rather you go on." The thing is, Terry would rather you go on, since he finds his own turns of phrase from his mouth to be particularly clumsy and helpless. The talk of others is far more musical, in his opinion.
There is a burning eagerness to anything that Terry puts his mind to, as if he feels that every one of his pet projects is something that must be proven else the world perish. Both his parents being scholars, there was no way that Terry would have managed to skip this particular genetic asset, and it's quite fortunate that Terry accepts his burning desire for knowledge with open arms. He considers truth and facts to be beloved and gorgeous objects to behold, taking great dislike in the idle concept that one might find it a suitable task to forge Potions laboratory findings or even what one might see in a crystal ball in the middle of a Divination class. (Granted, Terry thinks that Divination is an altogether useless dicipline that he refuses to take part of; be that as it may, being honest in everything that he does is so utterly important to him that the lie is, no matter how trivial, still a gross moral error to his thought process.) He is as honest about who he likes and dislikes as he is about his History of Magic citations, and it is a part of his conduct that Terry takes an inordinate amount of pride. Unfortunately, other scholarly habits also trickle down into Terry's personality that are less than fabulous -- mainly, his overly clinical and almost entirely unemotional look at personal situations. He has talked himself out of "like," as it were, many a time (for, contrary to popular belief, Terry does not even remotely resemble a hag), and frequently discusses his friends' problems in a way that, although seems merely logical to him, ends up sounding somewhat belittling and demeaning (especially to girls). In this aspect, he truly takes after his mother, who was the parent who wrote back to Terry's owled pleas to take him home with, "You are merely exhibiting anti-social behavioural symptoms as a result of your first crowd experience. This will disappate with time, &c." Suffice it to say, this is frequently why Terry has learned to listen rather than to pipe up whenever anyone is particularly bothered -- often, advice in the past has been replied to with horrified shireking.
Still, Terry likes to be peacemaker. The concept of harmony is something that truly appeals to Mr Boot, both within his close-knit pseudo-family of seventh-year Ravenclaws and throughout the wizarding world. Initially, he joined Dumbledore's Army as a favour to his closest mate, Michael Corner, out of respect and totally and entirely masculine affection. However, he continues with great fervor after Dumbledore dies because Terry feels that what Harry Potter taught him within the classes was more important than just self-defence (which, sadly, he concedes is necessary in this day and age), but a social network that inspired the best out of what was one of the darkest times in Hogwarts history. Furthermore, it doesn't hurt that Terry has not fallen far from his mother's branches; most of his spare time is spent researching Muggles and their perception of what magic is and how close they actually are to the truth. As a child, his father encouraged this mostly because it was a shared interest of the family that also did not involve going outside the Boot parameters; yet, as he grew older and Terry started to take Muggle Studies courses, the idle curiosity grew into a honest fascination and respect for those who do not work within the realm of the magical. He has a great respect-bordering-on-envy of Muggleborns for their status as straddling these two worlds, and current events have currently sickened Terry to the point of irate fury. (Probably the reason, actually, why he hasn't picked up his journal since the beginning of game.) This spurns him on towards the end of the current fight, in the hopes that he will eventually be able to make a nice bridge towards better magical and Muggle cooperation in the future. Granted, Muggles don't have to delight in knowing about the magical world; Terry isn't asking for that. He just wants people to understand and be as fascinated by the Muggle world as he is instead of be horrified and frightened to the point of terrorising those whose only crime is that they know nothing of what it is like to hold a wand with purpose.
LIKES: Forthcoming!
DISLIKES: Forthcoming!
HISTORY: Intellectuals, as a whole, do not have a predisposition to procreate -- at least, that is what Terence Boot frequently tells himself in order to ease the pain from lacking any siblings. Being able to choose his own hours meant that Terry's father, a live-in potionologist, was frequently an eager playmate who read fantastic stories and encouraged Terry's somewhat wild imagination, and while Terry appreciated his father's nurturing nature and ease of nature, it was no match for not having children his age about. The Boots, of course, liked their privacy; his mother, although a wizarding anthropologist, prefered to have her family out of the same scrutiny that she frequently bestowed upon others, and the constant explosions of the father Boot's tinkerings about was further incentive. It was a happy day when Terry, who had known since he had accidentally made his crayons change from orange to bright blue that he too was magical, received his letter to Hogwarts. Not only was he excited to learn more (for he is more than definitely a product of genes), but he was equally excited to join those who would be just as excited about the things he waxed poetic about! His joy was overflowing.
Ironically, the shock of the new surroundings -- and what eleven-year-old children were actually like -- was enough to give poor Terence shell shock. He thought, perhaps foolishly, that all children would be like a younger version of his father: perpetually cheerful, encouraging of great intellect, and more than a little loopy for the strangest things. Instead, within Ravenclaw, he found a kaliedoscope of personalities from the morbid to the grumpy to the somewhat enthusiastic sometimes if you squinted a little bit, and Terry started to feel more than a wee bit self-conscious. Was he smart enough? Cool enough? Savvy enough? Why couldn't he talk to anyone? Why did his tongue decide to betray him and force him to look like a fool? What started as a lack of acclimation soon snowballed into a severe case of separation anxiety and painful shyness throughout Terry's first and second years. There were a few boys and girls within his year that he was "okay" with and was able to study, but for the most part, he shrunk away from individuals as if they had the plague. Letters to home with the pleas, "Let me be homeschooled!" were common. So were this typical reply: "We're a bit too busy to do such a thing, Terence. It would be unhealthy, besides." Terry idly considered his doom.
Third year was his saviour. Before, his hobby had mainly been something that his father and mother had idly implanted in him years before, which happened to be a fascination between what Muggles thought were magic. Of course, Muggle Studies was a great help to this, but this has nothing to do with how Terry overcame his paralyising fear of his own housemates and the rest of the residents of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. For lo! it is Quidditch who helped in this endeavour, instead. Idle theses of "The Illusionist: Why David Copperfield is So Bloody Popular" and "Middle Earth's Corrolation with Actual Magical Beasts" were discarded as his father heavily bartered, in untypical fashion, for Terry to try out the sport. Surprisingly, he was pretty decent when it came to Beating, and although he didn't make it on the team in his third year, his work on reserves opened him up considerably. This trend snowballed into his later years, culminating in his joining Dumbledore's Army and actually shifting from reserves to the main team. Slowly, former individuals that formerly made Terry quite nervous (read: the housemates) became some of his closest friends and confidantes. The warmer parts of his personality started to shine through, and Terry became known as an almost entirely different person than from his earlier years. Hogwarts was less feared and more celebrated with each coming train ride, even if it seemed to be an even more dangerous trip as the years passed.
The current year is no different. Upon hearing about the death of Dumbledore, Terry's parents advised him as he had predicted they would: go back if you like, but if you're absolutely against it, the family wouldn't hold it against him. Terry chose to come back -- by principle, by sudden bravado, or by loyalty? Well, that's Terry's secret, really.
GAME(S) PLAYED: "cobbling" at Deathly Hallows RPG at Greatestjournal.
STATUS: Inactive
PLAYED-BY: Jamie Bell