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Character Information
Name: David Alexander Tielman Campion, goes by Alec
Canon Origin/Series: Swordspoint Series
School Year: Sixth
Gender: Male
Age: 16
Out of school living location: Monaco. He lives there with his grandmother on breaks. Justification for that is that it seems like the sort of place his grandmother would set up in, and a city-state very nicely reflects his canon environment. His parents live near Bath, England, but he goes to his grandmother's instead.
Blood status: Pureblood

Personality: Alec is bitter and privileged and arrogant, and he hates people like that. (He's not a hypocrite about it, he does hate himself more than anyone else, considering himself useless as well as being suicidal.) He's snide and over-dramatic, and he has really low self-confidence. He loves when he can provoke other people into attacking him, both because it proves that he's better than them, that they have to resort to physical violence, and that he deserves that kind of response.

The most immediately notable thing about Alec is that he really likes to hear himself talk. He talks even when he understands that no one can follow what he's saying, although he often usually peppers insults in amongst his observations, to make sure that people pay attention to him. He tends to play games with his voice and words, choosing them both carefully to provoke reactions out of people.

Those reactions usually aren't positive, and he takes a certain glee in driving other people to attack him for nothing more than his words. In a way it shows his superiority over them, that they can't respond in kind, but the fact that's suicidal and self-destructive tie into this as well, tie into the fact that he thinks being physically attacked is in some ways deserved. He's too scared of pain to do much by the way of direct self-harm (although he does try, from time to time, without much success), but he doesn't defend himself except with words when other people attack him. In large part this is because Alec doesn't see his life as worth defending. Although Alec takes care with his verbal language, he isn't nearly as in control of his body. He's generally graceless when he walks, and his body language tends to reveal things that he'd rather not.

Alec's very adamant that he hates the aristocracy and their abuse of their privileges, detesting the idea that some people are automatically better simply because of their birth. At his heart he's a scholar, devoted to the pursuit of knowledge, but he frequently gets frustrated at the politicization of information and theories. Sometimes Alec takes this frustration out on himself, by cutting himself. Other times he takes his frustration out on his books: both ripping out pages and burning them.

Despite Alec's pureblooded and rich upbringing, he didn't have an easy childhood. He's developed claustrophobia as a result of his mother's tendency to lock him in the cellar when he misbehaved. His mother also limited what sort of access to information he had, refusing to indulge his curiosity about the muggle world at all.

His grandmother has encouraged that trend now that he's living with her when he's not at Hogwarts, and Diane is about the only person that Alec bothers to behave himself around, displaying the pureblood manners that she expects and socializing nicely with her guests, because he's terrified that she'll kick him out and send him back to his parents.

Canon Background: Alec was born Lord David Alexander Tielman Campion, of Campion and Tremontaine, in a society where the current ruling body, the Council of Lords, overthrew a monarchy 200 years. While his was a privileged position, even the upper class were bound by their place in the stratified city he comes from. Alec's passion was mathematics and physics, something discouraged as being both too middle-class and against the religious teachings his mother strictly adhered to.

The first splitting point between Alec and the role he was supposed to take as a Lord came from his sister's arranged marriage. Janine -- fifteen at the time -- was opposed to marrying a man she didn't know simply because it was an arrangement that financially benefited the family. She and Alec made arrangements to run away from it all together, but when the time came he waited at the stables for her and she didn't show. He was later punished by being locked in the dark cellar for a number of hours (his mother had a tendency to do things like that), and he hasn't forgiven Janine for giving in or abandoning him.

When Alec did actually run away, he did so boldly, and in plain view of his mother. He went to his grandmother (the Duchess of Tremontaine), and she gave him financial assistance in going to University (the only in the city) so he could study Geometry, Rhetoric, and History. While Alec was being supported at University by his wealthy family, as far as his fellow Scholars knew he was just like them, middle class or lower class aiming to find his way to middle class. University was for a while enjoyable to Alec. He got to study, he had friends that he got drunk with and did drugs with, and he was learning. He was learning more than the professors would teach: he along with some of his friends were investigating the idea that the earth was itself moving, they had the evidence of the movement of the stars to prove it. Which was when all of Alec's friends were imprisoned, their degrees torn up by the University chancellors. Alec (protected by his nobility, which the University chancellors knew of even if his friends did not) was viewed instantly with suspicion, since someone had to have reported what they were doing to the authorities, and he was the only one not imprisoned. Alec didn't argue with them too much, because he felt his own guilt for being free while they were in a cell.

While he could technically have returned to University, the thought gave no comfort, and so Alec left. He went to Riverside, the most dangerous part of the city, there to ask the man rumored to be the best swordsman around to kill him. It didn't quite work out as Alec had planned. Not only did Richard refuse, but he made keeping Alec alive quite a priority. Fortunately, Richard did it in ways Alec found exciting -- like when Alec insulted someone to the point where they would draw a weapon on him, Richard claimed the fight as his and killed the man for Alec.

Alec moved in with Richard in Riverside, as his lover. Richard fought for the nobles, getting paid for fighting duels to first blood or death, and the nobles solved some disputes based on whose swordsman prevails. The money Richard made went to candles, food, and beer and books for Alec. Richard knew nothing about Alec's past, and was content with that for as long as Alec wished to hold it inside of him.

Events came to a head, and Alec was forced to reveal himself to save Richard's life, to step forward as his noble patron. It also left Alec in debt to his grandmother, and when she died she made him Duke of Tremontaine.

Background (AU!Canon; HP): Alec's grandmother, Diane Tremontaine, is a pureblood from a good to great family, as was his grandfather, who died before Alec was born. Their daughter, however, married another pureblood, at least -- Diane is the type to have disowned her if she hadn't done that much -- but a dirt poor one. As a result, Alec didn't have much contact with his grandmother in the early part of his life. He has a sister, who's one year older than him, Janine. Their mother was physically and emotionally abusive -- the worst for Alec was when she'd lock him in the cellar, which has left him with a rather extreme claustrophobia. Due to her abuse, when Alec was nine, Janine ten, they made plans to run away from home. The plans fell through when Janine got the letter from Hogwarts, and decided that she'd be out of there soon enough and that they couldn't realistically make it on their own anyway. Alec hasn't forgiven her for what he sees as betrayal, leaving him at home for a year without her.

Once he was a first year at Hogwarts himself, he wrote to his grandmother, to have permission to stay with her over school breaks. She not only agreed to that but also to buying him the best supplies money could buy, since she welcomed the opportunity it was to piss off Alec's mother/her daughter. Alec hasn't talked to his sister since she left home, even though she's been at Hogwarts as well.

Diane Tremontaine ostensibly stays out of magical politics, claiming not to have the stomach for it, but she's very on top of things that happen near her and has her fingers in more different pies than most people know exist. It's less scheming for power as it knowing the people who have it and leading them to make the decisions that set things up the way she wants them to be. The Tremontaine name, then, is known and well-respected as an old family, but not a currently important one.

He loves astronomy and mathematics, with an undue amount of attention focused on that aspect of muggle history. He's absolutely terrible at defence against the dark arts (refuses to participate as much as he can get away with), although he loves flying more than anything except astronomy.

He has a cat for a pet, and the connection he's formed with it is the deepest of all of his connections at Hogwarts. [apptivity]

How would your character fit in to each House?
Gryffindor: He loathes bullies and those who use their strength against the weak. He would willingly try to protect someone he believed deserved it or was too weak to defend themselves by stepping between them and a threat, or trying to otherwise take the negative attention on himself. However, listening to him talk he doesn't sound remotely Gryffindor, and he fully believes himself a coward.

Hufflepuff: In his canon, Alec's very loyal to the only person he cares about: Richard. He would die for Richard, and more difficult for Alec, he lives for him. He took his sister's betrayal very personally, and when he does connect to people, he does it deeply. But he doesn't connect easily, and he doesn't trust people at all. He prefers clever work over hard work, and doesn't stick to something all the way through anyway.

Ravenclaw: He's incredibly clever, with a quick response always on his tongue. He loves academics, and spends a lot of time trying to lose himself in the simplicity of learning. He's curious about what he doesn't know, and wants to find it out. But he drops the academics quickly when he's frustrated, and as much as he would like to be happy because of them, he needs more than knowledge.

Slytherin: He expects to be in Slytherin. He pretends to have a pureblood's arrogance, the belief that some people are naturally inferior. His parents and grandparents were in Slytherin, as is his sister. He also has a very cruel streak, and loves to see those who in his opinion deserve it meet with painful humiliation. He's not remotely a leader, and he's pretty much used all of his self-preservation up in getting out of his mother's home.

RP Sample 1:
That most of the teachers have decided to reduce the amount of homework we have simply because we have a weekend to Hogsmeade coming up is appalling. Our academics shouldn't be permitted to suffer for the sake of a little relaxation.

Even worse are the extensions on due dates. Any witch or wizard worth their salt should be already done, having made a realistic schedule when they first got the assignment.

[Alec personally isn't done, but that's not wholly relevant, in his opinion. Or maybe it just proves his point.]

There's no need to whine when you're just being lazy.

Third Person Sample:
All letters came with a certain degree of fanfare, although Diane Tremontaine's to Alec stopped at that level. A seal that one would have to know to recognize, and neat, inoffensive writing made it obvious, but Alec didn't need them. No one else would have written him, since his mother would prefer to deliver her ultimatums through Janine, someone Alec had learned to simply tune out.

There was no one watching him to register the tightness in his jaw as he opened the letter, read the contents.

My dear David, it started, and wasn't that by itself enough of a joke. He didn't like that name, chose not to go by it for a reason. There's a little gathering over Christmas break that you've been invited to, and I've gone ahead and RSVP'd for you. There weren't any surprises in that, and in many ways it made things easier, that he wouldn't have to have the illusion of having a choice to go or not tripping him up. I think that you'll quite like the host's daughter, she's a couple of years older than you but her family's very well-respected, and for good reason. Not even a mention of what family that was, let alone the girl's name. At least that gave Alec something to write back about, something to make him sound interested.

You'll need to be fitted for something new to wear, which we can do when you get home. Which would be a pain, but it was something that he'd expected. She'd always insisted on refitting him even when he hadn't grown since the last time he'd been fitted, and Alec had gained five inches of height in as many months. Much love, Diane.

Alec fought the urge to crumple the letter, and lost, although he quickly smoothed it out again. At least she hadn't made a point of talking about who her newest paramour was. He couldn't make himself pretend to even care about that.

Note: Alec is suicidal and self-harms. There's an opt-out post on my journal for anyone who wants to avoid him as a result of that, or just avoid those particular subjects.