Name: Caspian Gaspari
House: Slytherin

Physical Appearance:

Although he is almost eighteen, Caspian still has the look of a mere boy. He has a mop of brown hair, which lightens into almost-blond under the summer sun, and darkens into almost-black under the winter sky. At different ages it was either nearly shoulder-length or a close military crop. Recently he's been letting it grow into a happy medium, sometimes spiking it up to make himself look less feminine, sometimes letting it soft enough dance at the merest whisper. His face draws an almost-manly shape into a decidedly female, pointed chin. A wide forehead is at the top of his face, usually covered by a thick mat of bangs. His eyebrows are as heavy as aforementioned bangs, and the pair of hazel eyes which sit beneath are unnaturally large and gentle. With a rather narrow nose, above a full, pouty mouth, Caspian's face is decidedly feminine. His only saving grace are the eyebrows and his facial expressions, which melt from amorous into deadly in an instant.

Head aside, Caspian has a thankfully masculine body, although it is more on the slender side. His skin is still soft like a child's, and unmarred by scars...mostly. Although his shoulders aren't wide, they fit his graceful image well, and even though his arms aren't noticeably muscular, they are nicely toned. Caspian has a pianist's hand, with long, thin fingers. They are actually used for playing piano, too. His torso is, again, not visably muscular or sculpted, but it is nicely proportioned with the rest of his body. He has rather long legs, but in a nice sort of way, that makes him look taller than he really is. On the whole, Caspian's body is not one hardened by years of athletic activity. It's more graceful and elegant, which is also true of the way he walks and moves. Caspian isn't someone who looks particularly strong, yet there is an air about him that makes people think that he is very sure of himself.

On clothing--his style leans more towards formal and conservative. He delights in crisp white shirts, especially ones with collars. The Hogwarts robes seem to give him an added edge of poise, even if they are quite loose around the shoulders. It is a little known fact that during his childhood, Caspian went around wearing clothes with holes in them, from lack of care and money. The hems of his clothes were always frayed, and the seams always looked as if they were going to fall apart at the slightest touch. Later in life, he's learned to care about his clothes. On most days, he'll wear some kind of long-sleeved, black-and-white shirt, coupled with jeans or dark-colored pants. Only when it is unbearably hot will he resort to a T-shirt. He never wears shorts if he can help it. This is because he has a series of cuts and scars along his arms and legs, mostly from careless childhood tumbles and falls, but a few from some choice hexes from his father's wand.

Personality:

Raised by his tender, French mother, Caspian inherits her gentle nature and romantic ways of speech, which is is both poetic and polite. Caspian has been taught to only say the pleasant things on his mind--for example, telling a girl that she looks very beautiful in the candlelight, telling a Professor that his or her class is the most enjoyable, all the time. He has a graceful, sweet way of telling people exactly what they want to hear. The same graceful, sweet flattery also lets him get almost any information he wants, which he puts to use in order to achieve a goal that is neither graceful or sweet--to hunt down his father and kill him. His father was--or is--an exceptional wizard, specializing in painful, wordless spells and in some instances wandless magic. Naturally, to kill him, Caspian has to surpass all of that, and so picks up a multitude of useful skills on the way to reaching his goal.

He is very gifted in Charms, Transfiguration, and such, but is utterly horrible at casting protective spells. Defense Against the Dark Arts is a class that he dropped at the first chance, having no taste or skill in the area. Potions he's dropped as well, although for less logical reasons: he simply thinks it's useless, and will never get him very far in life. Studies are of almost no interest to him, although certain subjects--wandlore, mythology, and astronomy--capture his lively fancy, even though they are actually quite useless. Caspian is not particularly athletic, so he doesn't have the muscles nor the skill for Quidditch. A long period of illness a few years ago stripped him of any noticeable muscular features (large biceps and whatnot) he might have had, and never being particularly into sports anyways, he doesn't really care. In fact, he is more of a musician and an artist. His mother brought him up with an appreciation for the finer things in life, and also a love of music. The first words he recalled hearing were actually the lyrics of a song. He is a very accomplished musician: an almost virtuoso pianist, fairy adept at violin, with a liking for trumpet, and a fair taste for composition, although he has neither the time or the patience to actually write out anything. Add this to a talent for painting and sketching, and you can see how one-sided Caspian is.

He has a very romantic, French way of speech that is very appealing to females. Even though, in working towards his goal, he is cruel, cold, and feelingless, his affection for his mother brings out a very different side of him around females. However unprincipled and immoral he may be when on the subject of human life--he thinks that since people are going to die anyways, he might as well just shorten their suffering--he has a level of principles about many other things. For example, he believes in abstinence. Kissing is fine, very romantic, but anything past that makes him feel both uncomfortable and ruthless. This way makes him a hit among women, of course, but in the long run, even if he is very gracious and kind and he does like to flirt, he is uninterested.

So there are two sides of the coin here. 'Most everyone at Hogwarts sees Caspian as a polite, sweet boy who knows his manners and also how to keep a smile on his face. That, however, is only the small percentage of a largely dark persona that he keeps hidden. Though he isn't particularly interested in the Dark Arts, he is ruthless and unprincipled in certain areas, able to inflict pain without batting an eye. Though he delights in the beautiful and the mystic, he also destroys whatever stands in the way. Altogether, he's not anyone to cross, or double-cross.

Character Background:

Caspian was born to a wealthy Italian pureblood, Sebastian, and a French lady, Anastasie, one hot summer's day. Sebastian was a dark, handsome man who had the expectations and responsibilities of an eldest son. Anastasie Rousseau was a beautiful, gentle, but horribly poor pureblood witch whose family was rumored to have married into Muggle families, thus being shut out of the wealthy pureblood circle. Unfortunately, the Rousseaus were too strange to ever make much headway into Muggle society. Sebastian Gaspari, on the other hand, was the heir to a powerful, wealthy Italian wizard clan--thus, his eloping with Anastasie was competely unacceptable.

So a few months after Caspian was born, Sebastian cut all ties with his son and the mother of his son, and went back to his family. Anastasie fled back to France, her home, taking baby Caspian with her. They led a hard life, because her parents wouldn't take her back after learning she had run off with some unprincipled Italian character. She worked long hours as a singer, entrusting her son to her cousin Apollo. When Caspian turned four, she quit her Muggle job, allowed her cousins to support her, and began to raise him properly.

Although life was hard, Anastasie made the best of it, and brought her son up like the sweet woman she was. However, she made one huge mistake--she told him about his father, and how horrible it was for him to abandon them--and then, on impulse, she would always tell him "Oh, you are handsome just like your father had been." For Caspian was a very handsome boy. She instilled in him a love for music and art, but, being a woman, sadly neglected much physical outings. Occasionally Caspian's uncle Apollo would visit, and take him hiking--but after one unlucky fall which resulted in a broken leg, the little boy lost his liking for sports. Aside from that unfortunate childhood accident, his early life was quite pleasant. His mother had taken to mending clothes as he grew older, for some money, but she worked at home. Morals about women were strongly imprinted on the walls of his mind at this time, and for a few years they lived in relative peace and happiness.

When Caspian was eight, his father reappeared in his life. Sebastian's parents had forced him to take responsibility for his early carelessness in life. At the time, he was only thirty. Now, engaged to a proper Italian girl, he was resentful. All he had to do was stay with his son for a few weeks, set things right, and go home--but the man was still young, and still angry. One evening Caspian came home to his small apartment and found a strange man talking--or rather arguing--with his mother. Anastasie explained that the strange man was his father. At first, the boy was very excited...but then he witnessed a few acts of domestic violence.

When he protested, trying to protect his mother, Sebastian turned his wand on his own son and set him on fire to shut him up.

The next day, it was as if someone had switched off the ugly in Caspian's father. Sebastian was a charming man, always smiling, asking if Caspian's back hurt at all, apologizing profusely for ever hurting Anastasie, and even volunteering to cook all the meals. For a few days this odd behavior continued--and then Anastasie, thinking that he was trying to steal her son away from her, told him to get out and never come back again. The father did so, but not before warning that he would find them, wherever they were. Much troubled, Anastasie went to her cousins for help. They advised her to flee to a different country. London, they said, was home to all kinds of people, and offered many oppurtunities to start over. Plus, France was just across the canal, and she could come back home whenever she liked.

Taking their advice, Anastasie left for England when Caspian was ten. A few months later he received his Hogwarts letter. Anastasie, having been booted out of Beauxbatons for her pregnancy, knew next to nothing about Hogwarts, except that there were a few Houses and everyone spoke English. Up to then, Caspian had been living in a French environment, and the only English he had come into contact with were his few half-English cousins...who all spoke French. Panicked, his mother tried to teach and learn the language as best as she could, but not much got accomplished before the fateful first of September, and he was shipped off to school.

Around that time, Caspian had been developing in a not-so-nice way. He was always polite, and always sweet, out of loyalty to his mother; he picked flowers for his pretty neighbors, and often bought them candy--but he resented London. He missed the quiet, country life he had in France, and he hated his father for forcing them to flee to this strange country. When he arrived at Hogwarts, and wrote back to his mother, she told him that she didn't care what House he had been put in, but as long as he was happy, she was happy. Caspian soon made friends, who were charmed with his good manners and good looks, but...

Long story short, he was smarting with anger and resentment on the inside. As time went on and he learned more English, he began to lose the innocence he had as a child. Out of love for his mother he remained sweet and polite, but out of hatred for his father, he began to show immunity to suffering, pain, and the like. Some nights he tells himself that once Sebastian is disposed of, he'll go straight like his mother always wanted him to, but now that he's closing in on his goal, it's getting harder and harder to be sympathetic.

Other: speaks English with a heavy accent.
Special Request: err. I haven't the faintest idea.