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golden_armor's Journal

Created on 2006-05-14 00:03:46 (#10232700), last updated 2007-08-09

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Basic Info

Name:	golden_armor

Bio

This is a character journal for the fiery_inception RPG. While this character is an original character, I claim no rights of any kind to the world of Harry Potter created by J.K. Rowling.

The Basics

Character Name: Aurin Helm
PB: Guy Pearce

Age: 38
Birthday: February 3, 1963
Wand: Redwood, 13.5 inches, dragon heartstring core
House in School: Ravenclaw
Bloodline: Half-blood, Muggle mum and Wizard dad

Political View: Aligned with the Order. Though in the Ministry's employ, he's not their attack'dog, but is instead trying to be a force for sanity and fairness in a time when both seem to be in short supply.

Appearance

Height: Six feet
Weight: 175 lbs
Eyes: Dark blue
Hair: Dark brown, almost black, usually cut short.
Build: Very streamlined, somewhat muscular but not bulky.
Dress Style: Prefers Muggle clothes at home because there isn't as much fabric going everywhere, but wears robes when he goes out so he won't be conspicuous.

Basic Physical Description:

Defining Marks: Aurin has two scars on his right cheek, one right below the eye and the other slightly farther down, that look like inverted triangles. If anyone were to see him with his shirt off, they would see four scars, each about seven inches by two inches and roughly rectangular in shape. One is across the small of his back, one across his chest, one across his stomach, and one on his right forearm. When he first got out of the hospital after the war he was very self-conscious about letting his scars show, to the point where he'd wear long sleeves even in warm weather, but now he doesn't care as much.

Personality

Since the end of the war, Aurin's personality has changed, mostly for the better. At first, because of the loss of his wife, Aurin was very depressed, plagued by insomnia and nightmares, and generally in a bad place. However, he's since had some time to heal, and has come to terms with his loss. He still misses his wife, but he's not staying at home all the time anymore, and he's made some friends. However, Aurin still tends to take too much responsibility on himself and has trouble opening up to others, which makes it hard for him to ask for help. However, Aurin does have a few tricks for keeping himself sane. After the first war, the loss of his mother and sister drove Aurin to leave the country, seeking solitude. He ended up staying at a Buddhist monastery in China, where he learned the art of Ba Gua Zhang as meditation. When he's particularly stressed, he retreats to a quiet place and does a few forms to clear his mind.

Aurin's fiercely loyal to his friends and family, to the point that an insult or injury to someone he cares about will hurt him more than one to himself. He also cares a lot about animals, since he grew up around them. His store, Alecto's Animal Emporium, has a free veterinary clinic that is open all hours.

Aurin’s personal strengths are his loyalty, his intelligence, and his open-minded approach to new people and ideas. His physical strengths are his good distance eyesight (he's farsighted), his talent for breaking spells, and his skill in Ba Gua Zhang.

Aurin’s personal weaknesses are his tendency to hold in his emotions and his trouble opening up to people and asking for help. His physical weaknesses are bad near-sight, his need to practice extensively to get new spells right, and extreme sickness for the 12-14 hours following a vivid dream.

Psychology

Extrovert/Introvert: Very introverted as far as personal relationships go, always has been and always will be. He has good social skills, though, and can put people at ease very easily.
Boggart Would Be: His boggart would be darkness, so deep that even light doesn’t alleviate it, and his friends and family calling out to him for help from somewhere nearby. Aurin's always been fiercely independent and felt a need to protect those he loves, and blindness would leave him helpless to do anything.
Patronus Would Be: Aurin’s never been especially good at casting new spells, but once he manages to get a spell right one time, he can get it right every time after that (unless there’s some other factor like physical fatigue, emotional stress, some inhibiting spell cast by another, etc.). When it became apparent that he’d be coming into contact with dementors, he practiced during all of his spare time until he could cast a Patronus. His patronus takes the form of a harpy eagle, because his mum was an exotic animal veterinarian and let him take care of the exotic birds at her work. He bonded especially with one bird, a female harpy eagle that they called Alecto who’d been shot by hunters and lost the ability to fly. Aurin would take her out after school every day, perch her on the end of his father’s broom, and fly around at low levels so that she could feel the wind under her wings. He always admired her strength and independence, and he had great respect for. The fact that his patronus takes her form symbolizes this, as well as the fact that he associates birds of prey with home and safety, and his own independent nature.

Sexuality

Aurin is heterosexual. He experimented a little in his teenage years out of curiosity, but he’s straight as they come, though he has no problem with other sexual lifestyles. Aurin married his school sweetheart, Elsinore “Elsie” Wittenberg, shortly after the first war, but she was killed by Death Eaters during the second war. For a while he was grieving too deeply to think of romance, but there are types of loneliness that friends can't alleviate.

Lifestyle

Occupation: Aurin was an Auror for the Ministry during both wars, having been recruited right out of Hogwarts due to his talent for breaking spells. After the second war, when the Ministry became belligerent and controlling, Aurin, Toviel, and Colin all quit in protest. Aurin, not wanting to live on his father’s money, bought a vacant building in Diagon Alley to renovate and turn into a wizardly pet shop/veterinary clinic, using the knowledge and training his mother gave him. Toviel works there for free.

After the Attack on the Leaky Cauldron, Aurin and Toviel returned to their Ministry jobs, Aurin as an Auror and Toviel in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures (DRCMC).
Residence: The building Aurin bought in Diagon Alley is three stories tall. The first floor is the pet shop, the second is the clinic, and the third is Aurin’s flat.
Financial Status: Aurin’s mother left all of her assets to her husband, who in turn distributed them equally to Aurin and Toviel. In addition, Aurin had a savings account at Gringotts in case he ever needed extra money. The shop provides good income, and Aurin's job at the Ministry pays well.

Family

Parents: Colin Helm and Abigail Cort (deceased).
Siblings: Two: Older brother Toviel, younger sister Alexandra (deceased).

While they were all together, the Helm family was an incredibly close, loving, loyal family, the perfect environment for Aurin and his siblings to grow up in. Abigail and Colin supported their children in their endeavors, and even though Abigail wasn’t a witch she was very proud that all of her children were enrolled at Hogwarts. After the first war, Toviel separated himself from Colin and Aurin, blaming them for Alexandra and Abigails’ deaths, though it was really no one’s fault but the Death Eaters. However, when the second war came around, Toviel came back to their family home in the London suburbs, realizing that his family was the most important thing to him. He, Aurin, and Colin have since reconciled.

History from student days at Hogwarts to the present time

Aurin entered Hogwarts in 1974 as a somewhat shy bookworm, and that’s how he left as well. His more outgoing siblings were both very popular among the students, and most of his friends were people he met through them. He did have a few close friends, mostly other book-lovers. In his fourth year, however, he met Elsinore Wittenberg, a fellow Ravenclaw of his same year. Around her, his normal composed shell just seemed to melt away, taking all of his social skills and intelligence with it. It took his siblings, however, to tell him that he was, “in deep trouble. Also known as love,” as they put it. They dated off and on through school, mostly on. Elsie made him try out for Quidditch in their fifth year, and to his surprise he made chaser, and was actually pretty good at it. They studied together, ate together, were sickeningly romantic toward each other, and took every dark alcove as an opportunity to show just how much they loved each other. In their sixth year, Aurin broke his shy character to put on a shameless display for Valentine’s Day by serenading Elsie at lunch, accompanying himself on guitar, having stayed up all the previous night charming a bunch of rose petals to swirl around her at his command. By the time they graduated in 1980 and he’d entered Auror training, Aurin had realized that there was nobody he’d rather be with.

Aurin was rushed through Auror training and put into the field in 1982, and he continued to fight until the first war ended in 1983. During that year, his mother and sister were killed by Death Eaters in a raid on his neighborhood, which had many family members of Ministry employees living in it. After the end of the war, Toviel, Aurin, and Colin parted ways, Toviel leaving to work in America as a specialist on winged horses, and Aurin moving in with Elsinore because he just couldn't stand to be in the house anymore. He was, literally, an emotional and physical wreck, not sleeping, barely eating, unable to feel any emotion whatsoever most of the time. What emotion he did express came in violent outbursts of grief and rage. It was obvious that he was blaming himself for not being there to protect his mother and sister. Elsie stayed with him through it all, coaxing him to eat, holding him at night so he could rest without nightmares. It was the only time in his life when Aurin depended totally on someone other than himself.

Even after moving out of his house, life in London was still too filled with reminders of people lost and gone. One night, after about a year had passed, Aurin left Elsie a note telling her not to look for him and took off on his broom, leaving even Romero, his harpy eagle companion and the son of Alecto, behind. He didn’t know where he was going, only that he wanted to be totally alone for a while. He flew most of the time, landing and apparating across places where detection by muggles was too much of a risk. The solitude of being high in the air, with only the wind and the occasional bird, helped soothe his mind, which had been a tangle of thoughts for so long.

Aurin spent his nights camping rough, spending one night a week in a hostel to get a good meal and a shower. Somewhere over Pakistan, Romero caught up with him, and instead of sending him back, Aurin found he'd been missing the bird and let him stay. Continuing East, Aurin found himself in India. He was fascinated with the society, which revolved so much around the native religion of Hinduism. This was the first sign of his old personality to return, the scholarly curiosity. He began researching Hinduism and found that it was closely related to two other Eastern religions, Buddhism and Shintoism. This discovery led him to Japan and China in order to research the two religions.

The first religion he investigated was Shintoism, because it sounded so much like wizardry that he thought it was perhaps founded by muggles who had seen wizards. He went to Japan and spent his time visiting the Shinto temples, sampling the signature foods of each region, and learning calligraphy. However, the country felt somewhat rushed, even in the rural areas, as if it was constantly looking forward. Aurin, still fragile emotionally, found this unsettling. He left after a few weeks, resolving to return when he could and find out more about the country.

Leaving Japan marked the beginning of Aurin’s journey back west, which was arrested when he spent one of his nights at a Buddhist monastery in China that also acted as a hostel. Here was the environment he’d been looking for. The monks were quiet, polite people, living a simple lifestyle, focused entirely on the present moment. Aurin asked to be allowed to spend some time there, and the head of the monastery, sensing his spiritual turmoil, agreed. Aurin gave them all his possessions, keeping only his wand and broom (both hidden just outside one of the monastery walls), and entered into their lifestyle. Not having been raised a Buddhist, he was required to learn the religion, which he did eagerly, reading all he could get his hands on and listening intently to the lessons of the monks. He joined in their daily routine, which centered around meditation and the importance of being able to clear one’s mind. For the first time in months, he found himself able to sleep through the night, eat a full meal, and interact with others. Looking for a way to keep fit, Aurin discovered that many of the monks practiced the martial art of Ba Gua Zhang as meditation, and asked to be allowed to learn. Though the monks made it look easy, Aurin found that the techniques were actually extremely difficult, asking the wielder to use nothing but his body to defeat the enemy by turning the enemy’s attack against him using circular motion and joint-locking. Aurin spent four years at the monastery, learning all he could from the monks, practicing meditation and Ba Gua Zhang, and practicing his wizardry at night, when no one could see.

The years that passed helped Aurin to heal, and he found his thoughts turning toward Elsinore. Seeing that his focus had shifted to the outside world, the head of the monastery told Aurin that, while he was welcome to stay, it would be good for him to go back to his old life in London. Aurin took his advice and sent Romero with a letter to Elsie, asking her forgiveness. She sent him back a Howler that he had to open in the woods so that no one would hear, and a letter that said of course he could come back. Returning to work for the Ministry as an Auror, Aurin lived a fairly quiet life with Elsie during the years between the wars. They married in 1989, a year after his return. He reconciled with his father, but sending Romero with a letter to Toviel got him nothing but a returned letter. Colin explained to him that Toviel still blamed them for Alexandra and Abigail dying. Aurin thought Toviel was being a prat, but remembered how he’d felt just after the event and realized that if he hadn’t gone looking for peace he would probably feel the same way.

The start of the second war in 1998 saw Aurin leaving home a lot, often spending days on end out doing work for the Ministry. His martial arts training served him well, one reason being that it had given him the idea of turning curses back on their owners when he countered them, and the other being that he was still a formidable opponent when disarmed, which caught many of his enemies off guard. He made many enemies among the Death Eaters, though he wasn’t nearly as hated as Harry Potter or his comrades who dominated the news. Toviel, meanwhile, had moved back in with Colin, having worked through his grief enough to realize that he needed his family. He and Aurin reconciled over a bottle of firewhiskey on one of Aurin’s rare days off.

Two weeks before the end of the second war, Aurin's department received a tipoff about a group of Bellatrix Lestrange's cronies holed up in an old country estate. He kissed Elsie goodbye, put on his field clothes, and apparated to the location where he was supposed to meet the rest of his team. At the location, while they were plotting their strategy for the raid, a group of twelve Death Eaters (one for each member of the team) apparated in around them, surrounding them and ambushing them. They killed two of his team instantly, and captured the rest, including Aurin. As admirers of Bellatrix, the Death Eaters began torturing the captured Aurors, trying to get information out of them, but having fun as well. Aurin fought back as best he could with spell breaking abilities and occlumency, but one of the Death Eaters cast a curse on him that was supposed to force him to relive his worst memories. Aurin tried to break it, and deflected it somewhat, but it struck him on the right side of the face, narrowly missing his eye and leaving two holes burned into his cheek. The curse, twisted by Aurin’s attempt to avoid it, sent visions of horror screaming through his mind, all of them melding into one another so that he couldn’t even begin to tell them apart. Had he not learned to create a calm within himself from the Chinese monks, Aurin wouldn't have survived, but he barely managed to regain control.

The Death Eaters continued to try to inflict more pain on him, but they got nowhere. He was simply too hopeless to even care anymore....until they brought Elsie in. They brought her to him, forced her to stand in front of him, and forced him to watch. There were four Death Eaters there that day, and they took turns hurting her, but through it all she kept begging him not to tell them anything, that what they stood for was more important than her. Finally, they tired of getting no results, and killed her in front of him, not with the killing curse, but by slitting her throat and letting her bleed to death in his arms. They had no more use for him, so while they discussed what to do to him they amused themselves by carving Elsinore's name into his body.

Before the Death Eaters got a chance to kill him, they were called away to the last battle, leaving Aurin for dead. He lay there for hours, gathering his strength, then, moving through sheer force of will, apparated outside to the lake by the estate where he and his team had been captured in the first place. Romero had been waiting for him in the woods outside, and by sending the bird with his wand to St. Mungo’s, Aurin was rescued. The day after the battle, Romero showed up outside the window of Aurin’s room, demanding to be let in. When he was, he flew instantly to the head of Aurin’s bed, perched there, and wouldn’t budge except at night, to hunt. Aurin was unconscious for a week, and when he awoke was in no shape to interact with anyone except on the most basic level. He talked only to Romero, and only when nobody was listening. Toviel and Colin visited him every day, and they were the first people he talked to, to tell them the location of Elsie’s body. He was allowed to leave the hospital for the funeral (two weeks after the war), which was a small, emotional ceremony attended by all of their surviving friends and family. That night, he had a vivid dream of formless terrors and people screaming for help, a magical leftover from the curse, and with his fragile physical condition it nearly killed him. In the next three weeks he had many more dreams, one almost every other night, and then they gradually began to taper off to one a week.

Soon after the first dream occurred, Aurin was ordered to the Wizengamot, in order to testify against two of the Death Eaters who’d tortured him and killed his wife. That night, Aurin had a psychological breakdown and scratched the places they'd carved Elsie's name off his skin with his bare hands.

Aurin spent the rest of his time in the hospital complying with the Healers’ orders and treatments, finally being released in mid-April of 2000. He moved back into his childhood home with Colin and Toviel, and sold the house he and Elsinore had lived in. Using what his mother and Elsinore had left him, along with his savings and the money from the house, he bought a burned-out building in Diagon Alley, renovated it (with help from Colin, Toviel, and some hired workers), and turned it into a pet shop/veterinary clinic. He also slowly continued to recover. He still has occasional vivid nightmares, which take a toll on him and leave him feeling sick and weak for 12-14 hours after they occur, but otherwise Aurin's been steadily improving. After the attack on the Leaky Cauldron, Aurin and Toviel were called back to work at the Ministry, and so Aurin now finds himself an Auror once again.

Players Info

Name/Nickname: Elizabeth/Liz
AIM: sarene87
Email: sarene87 (at) bellsouth (dot) net

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