As the Months Pass by...

Post by Arthur Stroud on Jan 14, 2018 11:40:59 GMT -5

Arthur Leonard Stroud
16 - Male - Half-blood - 2/26/2001

Student

Appearance and Personality
General Appearance: Arthur is of average height, standing slightly above 5'9'' (and he should've stopped growing by now). He's got the same blue eyes as his sister (that came who knows where) and the same brown hair. He'd often look bored what has changed over the last months to exhausted and depressed. Having spent a lot of time indoors of late, he's lost most of his tan. He blushes easily and often (which is a grave disadvantage when you need to come up with excuses why you didn't do your homework every other day).
Sexual Orientation: He was just exiting the "girls are stupid"-phase when the Death Eaters took over and his Mum became more important than anything else.
Skills: Repairing things, Arithmancy, being in the opposite mood from his sister, cheering up Vi, making Vi sad
Weaknesses: His temper (things are supposed to go the way he wants them to! Sulks.), can't lie (would turn into a tomato - doesn't keep him from lying though. Er, from trying to lie.), Vi (He'd do anything, anything, for her - and that's from someone who tends to do as little as possible.), Sleeping (once he would do it all the time, even in class, but of late he's scared of it - in his dreams he always sees his mother. He tries to go over to where she's standing, but he can't move. He calls for her, but he's got no voice. He tries to get her attention, but she just starts to slowly fade away. He'd wake up covered in sweat and trembling, not daring to get back to sleep.)
Positive Personality Traits: Caring, listens to people, enthusiastic, ready to help, confident
Negative Personality Traits: irritable, lazy, a bit of a coward (he'd love to stand up to the DA professor and tell him he's a monster. But he doesn't dare. And it's not only because he's scared that Vi might suffer negative consequences though he tries to tell this to himself; but he's scared of what might happen to him), a bit full of himself (not of late, but prior to the whole take-over. He'd tell anyone who admonished him to be more productive that his family's well off. He'd take over his father's company one day and earn good money. He doesn't need to excel at school.)
Hobbies and Interests: Ever since his Mum disappeared, he learnt for school like crazy. Prior to that, he'd hang around, read comics, fix things ("Dad never let me near the stuff he got from Mum. He would hardly ever show it! Isn't this unfair? When Vi becomes an archeologist, I wanna be a restorer.")... he'd be your average student, happy to just pass his classes with minimal effort (apart from Arithmancy; he likes numbers).
Character History:

As much as Arthur loves his sister, he has never quite forgiven her for being born first. In fact, he has the habit to talk of her as his "little sister", at least when Vi's not present. But for many years that was the only thing in his life to dampen his mood. He had a happy childhood with a father who would always listen and understand, two pairs of grand-parents who'd spoil them, and a sister with who he could share everything. And of course, he had a brilliant, wonderful mother. At least when she was there which she was far too seldom. But he was proud of her. His Mum was a great witch, making important discoveries, respected by everybody. The day his Mom returned from her trips was always a feast. He and his sister would sit on her knees (or at her side when they grew older) and listen to her stories with open mouths.

When the twins grew older, Arthur consoled himself that, even though Vi was a couple of minutes older, his magic was stronger. He never doubted her magical abilities, he never even considered it possible (and their parents kept their unfounded concern to themselves), but he did enjoy to reverse anything that she did - or repeat the same action with twice the force. He enjoyed being, well, better is hardly the word (though the five-year old in him says, yes, it is), being more noticable than his sister. She was noticed enough, wasn't she? She was always complaining about Mum not being there. He tried to help Dad explain - that Mum was needed at the excavations, that her job was a contribution to society. He repeated these things over and over to Vi, being optimistic that their mother would soon return, that she would spend a lot of time with them, until she was cheery again. Then he'd usually start to sulk in his turn because she was such an attention-seeker (yes, when he was angry, he'd accuse her of that) - did she think she was the only one who missed their mother? Indeed, it is hard to have a Mum for only a few months a year and then have to share. Luckily, unless he was in one of his temper tantrums, he loved sharing with Vi.

Vi mastered her outbursts at their mother's absence, and he helped her convincing their parents that she could accompany her on excavations, leaving Arthur to sulk at home and grumble about how Mum loved his sister better. And whenever he actually voiced his complaints, he'd end up feeling extremely guilty because of what he had just said and would try to make amends by repairing Vi's toys or dusting his mother's books - not that it kept him from repeating the accusations whenever Vi seemed too cheerful to him.

They turned eleven, their Hogwarts letters arrived, and on the first of September 2012, they were on platform Nine and Three Quarters with the only downside that their mother wasn't there as she had to depart for an important dig. But other than that, there Hogwarts days passed as uneventful as any other student's. Vi would work, and Arthur'd try to profit from it. He finished his first school year scrubbing the toilets because his attempt to get a peek of his sister's parchment during an exam was, of course, discovered. Since then, he developed a certain talent to learn just enough to pass his classes though he did make a bit of an effort for Arithmancy. Sometimes Charms. When he was in the mood. But As were always the marks that dominated his school reports. Until the year of the OWLs.

Arthur had never much cared about politics or history, so he hardly noticed when the Ministry fell in October. Vi was freaking out but that was Vi. Mum was perfectly fine, his sister was being silly by sending all these owls. No one he knew had been affected by the recent changes. He wasn't taking Muggle Studies and Defence Against the Dark Arts or Dark Arts... he had never payed that much attention in class anyway. That things had changed he only really realised at the End of Year Dance. Then the lock down. And the registration of the Muggleborns. It took him a whole day and a bordering-on-an-argument discussion with Vi to realise that their mother was in danger. Because that couldn't be. Nobody would hurt Mum. She was an internationally well respected scientist. She was in no danger. Or... was she? After the initial hesitation and denial, he became desperate and the only way he found to distract himself was to dive into school work, ending up working more in the last week before the exams than maybe over all the rest of the year. Apart from Dark Arts. That subject was the Death Eater subject, he wouldn't do anything for it - including handing in an empty bit of parchment at the end of the exam.

As a result, he had - for the first time in his life - better marks than his sister. And couldn't have cared less. At least his father was happy, and he supposed that this was... a good thing? If he had been able to tell his mother, he might have been proud of himself, but now it didn't matter. Once the lockdown was over, he spent the summer in his room learning for school because that was the only thing that kept him from snapping at Vi or his father. He knew Vi once tried to get to these Muggleborn lodgings, but he wouldn't go with her. It was pointless. If Mum were there, Dad would know. But they knew nothing, could do nothing, so he tried to forget - to pretend that his mother was just on an excavation and would come back any moment. A few times, he tried being optimistic for his sister's sake. She was just as desperate as he was and he felt that he should be more supportive. But he wished Vi hadn't talked him into going with them to Iran in search for their mother. It had been of no use. Only pain.

School started again, and he went back because he had no choice. And what else could he do? Now, he continues with his attempts to drown every emotion in homework. Apart from the one for DA for which he does the absolute minimum to avoid detention.

Plots and Politics
What is your character’s stance on the recent takeover of the Ministry by Death Eaters? "HATEhatehatehate them. They killed my Mum, didn't they? Or why else has she disappeared?"

Where did your character stand in the treatment of Death Eaters and their families under the late Minister Durant's rule? Well, his parents said it's wrong to punish whole families. And he felt bad for those he knew from school. But, honestly, he didn't think much about it.

How was your character and their family affected by the reign and death of Voldemort? Well, his mother was in the Muggle world and escaped the worst. And his father was abroad... his (paternal) grandparents say it was a horrible time, though. You never knew whether you wouldn't return home to find the Dark Mark over your house. Because anybody who wasn't with him was against him.

Family

Parents: @rosalind , Watson Stroud
Siblings: Violet Gertrude Stroud (twin)
Children: No
Partner: No
Other Relevant Family: Great grandparents, a nice uncle... that's about it.
Family History:
(taken from Roz's app)
Rosalind’s family is made up entirely of muggles: Arwen Danvers and Edgar Montego met at St. Tomas’ Hospital in London, England. Arwen, a neonatal nurse, was always the first to help Edgar, the sweet Orphanage owner, with whatever he needed. It wasn’t long before the pair of them hit it off. After a few years of flirting, Edgar finally got up the courage to ask Arwen on a date. A few months later, they were engaged and married in a small village in the south of France.

They had always wanted kids — at least four or five — and when Arwen found out that she couldn’t conceive naturally, she was heartbroken. There were very few medical options for them, and they had all but lost hope, when a few years down the line, Arwen realized that they had been granted their greatest wish. Arwen shortly thereafter left her job as a neonatal nurse and began working with Edgar at the orphanage.

When Roz married Watson, the Montegos were not happy about the match. They always told their daughter that they didn’t approve of her husband, but she failed to listen (Roz is very head strong). They often have their grandchildren, Violet and Arthur, over and watch them.

(taken from Watson's app)
The Strouds are a family known mostly for their financial success. They've been around for about 200 years (therefore not among the oldest families), and they made themselves a name as very astute businessmen. (In the context of this app, it should be stressed that the majority of the Stroud ancestors preferred to stay on legal grounds though some were known to balance very artfully on the line between legal and criminal.) The origins of the family are shrouded in uncertainty, it can only be guessed that the first known Stroud who married the only daughter of a wealthy owl-farm owner in 1809 was Muggle-born or even a Muggle. From this point on, the Stroud family owned a decent amount of money that was constantly growing from generation to generation, mostly due to their talents in business related matters, but sometimes also through clever marriage tactics (whereby no Stroud has ever been heard of to have cared about anything like bloodstatus).

Watson's great-grandfather then founded a real-estate company, the Stroud Magical Holding. This proved not only a very profitable business, but also an opportunity to get in contact with the most important wizarding families all over Great Britain (and sometimes even beyond). When Watson's father took over the company, it was already the most important and respectable of its kind in Britain, and the venerable man did all he could to keep it that way. He married the daughter of a wealthy apothecary (whose son was also very successful, establishing a whole chain of apothecaries). The only big crisis the Strouds had was in the nineties when money kept disappearing from their company and they couldn't find the source of the leak. Only when they ordered their eldest son upon his return from Egypt to find out who takes the money, did it slowly stop. They were glad that their son showed so much talent for leading the company, glad that he had founded a family. On the whole, the era of Watson's parents was successful, as they worked hand in hand, and only entrusted their eldest son with taking over the company in 2013, concentrating themselves on spoiling their grandchildren. Their younger son has also a job in the company, but he hardly gets anything to say.