BEAUCHAMP, Lucien

[Lucien Beauchamp]

BEAUCHAMP, LUCIEN

“HOODOO JUST AIN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE.”


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The truth is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with caution.
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
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FULL NAME Lucien Comeaux Beauchamp
NICKNAMES Luc
BIRTHDATE november 5th
AGE 29
BLOOD pure... after a fashion
POSITION DESIRED Professor of Alchemy
CANON OR ORIGINAL original

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It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
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HAIR&EYES Lucien wears his tawny brown hair long and usually loose, occasionally slicked back in an elegant sweep.  His dark eyes sometimes appear piercing and focused, alight with a madcap gleam, or sometimes dull and flat, with a blank stare that is neither humored nor particularly interested in you.
HEIGHT&WEIGHT 5'10"; 150-lbs - a slender, lean whip of a man who carries his slight frame with fluid grace.
FACE CLAIM Ben Barnes

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I don’t go looking for trouble. Trouble usually finds me.
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
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WAND madrona, dual-core fwooper feather & phoenix tailfeather, 9", inflexible.
LIKES
- good, old-fashioned etiquette
- wine & cigarettes
- tall men with class
- cordial banter
- heated, meaningful debate
- the messy side of magic
- getting his hands dirty
- travel and new experiences
- that glorious, perfect moment of sudden understanding as it blossoms in a student's expression
- an exciting blend of contrast between more traditional, cultural practices and a modern critical approach
- the pursuit of knowledge
- unorthodox or unique perspectives
DISLIKES
- unnecessary rudeness, especially for the sake of a misguided superiority complex
- ignorance about his culture and the form of magic he practices
- a sense of entitlement or personal worth based on anything other than the merits of a genuine personality
- crude or crass behavior
- cats
- disrespect for unfamiliar ways of life
- prejudice
- tradition for tradition's sake
BOGGART causing the death of a student.
MIRROR OF ERISED the faceless silhouette of a male companion - although loathe to admit it, Lucien is desperately lonely; he feels like a man out of time, ill-suited to what modern relationships have to offer, and he longs to be seen and appreciated in an intimate way for who he truly is.
PATRONUS alligator - a renowned symbol of his home turf, this creature is exceedingly powerful and dangerous when provoked yet simultaneously slow and lazy, preferring to sun itself for hours.
PERSONALITY Lucien's polished and refined exterior -- like the tough hide of his patronus -- can be quite difficult to breach.  Although he does not conceal his true sentiments, very rarely does he feel compelled to express them with acquaintances, and real friends always seem like an elusive commodity for this enigmatic man.  He is openly gay, but very little about Lucien could really be considered 'open.'

His demeanor epitomizes that 'Old South charm'; he speaks with a smooth French Creole accent that is part aristocratic, part easy slang, and all southern drawl.  Despite his penchant for finer tastes, he is nonetheless intensely respectful of the layman's culture of Creole Louisiana, and his experiences with magic began in the bowels of the bayou, dripping rooster blood and mixing strange powders right alongside impoverished people of color.  Lucien was trained in hoodoo alchemy long before he ever acquired a wand or attended an officially-sanctioned wizarding school, and his roots go deep into the messy, unorthodox muck of the swamps.

This passion for the stranger side of magic makes Lucien a formidable wizard who is capable of unique, often unexpected feats-- he'll finish casting a spell unrecognized by your average Death Eater before they even know what hit them.  He travelled to England during the end of the final Dark War specifically to lend his American services to the cause, because Lucien absolutely cannot abide the ridiculous classism of Voldemort's army.  He regularly positions himself as something of a champion for the underprivileged and overlooked practitioners of magic, and when he was invited to stay on as Professor at the esteemed yet rather culturally-isolated Hogwarts School, Lucien graciously accepted this opportunity to spread awareness of his beloved origins.

Although dedicated to the peoples and customs of his home, Lucien rarely feels legitimately connected to anyone-- he is usually an observant interloper, constantly split between the differing paradigms of his birth and his experiences, what he appreciates and what he embodies.  He is alienated on all accounts, though he rarely shows this discomfort, and does not fit in with the old-money aristocrats of his pureblood French immigrant wizarding family or the untamed, laissez-faire underbelly of magical society.

Despite these interpersonal and emotional shortcomings, Lucien is a brilliant man with a piercing analytical mind, and his intellectual pursuits are rigorous and thorough.  As an alchemist, one must be highly-attuned to all considerable facets of a logical equation, capable of studying the obscure interactions of elements and variables and anticipating outcomes, and if there's one thing Lucien excels at, it's exhaustive reasoning.  He has turned this critical eye on his own sense of self throughout his entire life, and is therefore fully in control of the persona he cultivated; nothing about Lucien's behavior is an accident, and despite a very well-developed validation for all his beliefs or his protests to the contrary, almost nothing about him is as it seems.

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Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right, and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort.
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
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BIRTHPLACE Opelousas, Louisiana, USA
SPOUSE none
CHILDREN none
SIBLINGS Clementine Marguerite Beauchamp - younger sister in America
OTHER Mambo Priestess Chamani Laveau - his fierce Haitian diva tutor
HISTORY Lucien Comeaux Beauchamp was born the eldest son of two high-society Creole parents whose pureblood genealogies could be traced back to the original French immigrant families that first colonized Louisiana-- a source of great pride for his family, and something of a mixed bag for Lucien.  The only aspect of his heritage that Lucien truly appreciates is the influence of native witches and wizards who, in the Creole way, intermingled with his ancestor settlers and created the beautiful melting-pot of genetics of the modern, post-plantation Creole wizarding community today.

As a young child, Lucien felt heavily swayed by the earthy, elemental magic of his bayou-dwelling brethren, and his interest in hoodoo and alchemical spells flourished during a luxurious youth.  He received the finest education from specialized tutors money could buy, but he tempered this with his own exploration into the unincorporated swamps, and also became the eager apprentice of a renowned Vodou priestess, whom he credits for developing his true love of magic.  This combination of folk magic, Haitian spiritual influence, and a more respectable institutionalized education caused a great deal of conflict in Lucien's early life, so he was perpetually at odds with his elitist parents and the hesitant acceptance of a rich, 'well-bred' French boy into the cultural fold of Creole people of color.

When he left his stately plantation home to attend the preeminent wizarding school of New Orleans, he was pleased to discover that many other witches and wizards of his generation brought that folk influence of cultural magic with them, and he became heavily involved with campus politics and social movements, fighting to legitimize hoodoo practitioners as official magic-users and to dispel the perception of ethnic tradition as 'backwater.'  Despite the success of these efforts in his local region, where the Creole cultures were embraced, Lucien quickly discovered that anything but the most institutionalized forms of magic were received with distrust and scorn everywhere else.  He began travelling, wrote his thesis on alchemical thaumaturgy and the foolishness of its impractically-idealized pursuits, and gave lectures wherever he could in order to broaden the horizons of classical western ideologies of alchemy.  Lucien argued that the ancient Greek methods, enforced during the Dark Ages and popularized by the Renaissance, were only one very small portion of the picture, and the well-rounded alchemist embraces symbolism and practice from all magical origins.

Lucien's younger sister and only sibling Clementine was born while he was abroad, and although he routinely returned home to visit with his family and form a sibling bond, their relations have always been strained; she lacked his innate passion for new, overlooked knowledge and his awareness of subtler truths, and therefore has been developing into the perfect child his parents always craved-- a pristine southern belle who never once considered the magical merits of goat entrails.

During his lecture tours, Lucien kept abreast of global wizarding politics as well as national ones, and when he learned that the infamous dark wizard Voldemort was once again rising to power on a platform of elitist intolerance, he left for the UK as soon as he could cancel his next college appearance.  Unbeknownst to the British Ministry of Magic, Lucien fought viciously for a small rebellious group of aurors, and networked his way through the underground of Death Eater resisters all the way to the fellows of Hogwarts.  His experience with the strange curses and hexes of voodoo lore made him a powerful if somewhat disturbing ally, and when the war ended and the Alchemy Professorship at Hogwarts opened up, Lucien was a very progressive, forward-thinking choice.

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Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
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NAME/ALIAS Luc
OTHER CHARACTERS none yet.
RP EXPERIENCE several years.
RP SAMPLE this will be rather long:
There.  That was him.

Jaldane watched surreptitiously over his shoulder as each of the patrons in his digital blindspot reacted in their own individual ways to the little skirmish that broke out-- first one tonight.  He hadn't expected such a convenient source of drama to distract and amplify the personalities present, but Jaldane was certainly not going to let that opportunity slide by.

They were just watching.  Enjoying the entertainment, even-- some grinned or laughed and slapped each other on the shoulders.  Some just buried their noses in their drinks.

Only one person in the entire bar moved towards the fight.  Of all the self-serving pricks there, who didn't want to jeopardise the rest of their night with the dancers, who were perfectly content to let security drag the tussling parties away, one person took it upon himself to intervene.  Jaldane caught the reflex-like jerk of motion; the young man practically leaping to his feet at the sight of violence.

Alliance.  Alliance all the way.  Who the f*ck else would come to this rotting corpse of a business establishment and actually, for even a moment, suffer the delusion that he should get involved?  With someone else's fight, no less?

But he played it off well; this fresh-faced blueback kid used the excuse of standing to head for the bar.  Maybe his waitress was busy with the brawl and he was impatient for more intoxication.  Maybe he was nervous.  Maybe he was too young to be here, in a place like this-- maybe he hadn't learned the ropes.  Maybe he was nervous.

Only two reasons for a kid like that to be nervous, a kid with strong shoulders and a commanding stride.  New to the life; not sure how to behave in stressful situations in a place like the Wormhole, where he could only begin to get his dick wet with bad news.  Or... they sent a single oaf on recon, one single Officer unprepared to deal with danger.  Maybe didn't even tell him what -- or who -- he should be looking for, because the real danger in that bar was slouching right beside him, right now.

Jaldane glanced sideways out of the the corner of his eye.  Shoulder-to-shoulder with the only genuine threat in the room-- a truth, ironically, that went both ways.  He had to be sure.  It was a tic, a fix; he couldn't just let it go.  If he needed to pack a bag that night and hop freight on the next transporter offa that shitball rock, Jaldane had to know.  One step ahead, he thought, even when they're steppin' on my toes.  Alliance was there tonight, of that he was certain, but the real question -- always the only question that ever mattered to Jaldane -- was why.

Maybe just a nervous kid, blowin' off steam.  Maybe just thirsty.

Jaldane leaned over, closing the distance between himself and the young man standing at the bar beside him, and murmured, "Enjoy the show?"
HOW DID YOU FIND OUR SITE? Secretary.
CODE WORD Can I Slytherin?

[Shalie]

There are only 11 schools that are magic, so I'm not sure where in America that school is. Not sure it would be in New Orleans, but you could state that he went to the Wizarding School in America, wherever that is, or you could say that he was home-schooled. It is a choice to go to a magic academy.

Either way, not that big of a deal.