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General Information
Character Name:
Corbin Volpes Donahue
Age:
13
Date of Birth:
31 October, 1906
Blood Status:
Pureblood
Residence:
Donahue Castle, near Ayr, Scotland
Family:
Father: Lord Vulpes Donahue - Reclusive Dark Arts scholar, former academic. Maintains extensive private library and research laboratory. Known for his traditional views on magical society and strong opposition to progressive educational reforms.
Mother: Lady Ariana Donahue - Disappeared when Corbin was approximately six years old. Circumstances unknown. Corbin has few clear memories of her, though he sometimes catches himself listening for her footsteps in empty corridors.
Primary Caregivers: House elves of Donahue Castle, particularly Squinty who served as Corbin's childhood companion and taught him which visitors required him to hide in his room, which meals his father would forget, and how to mend torn robes without magic. The house elves navigate the castle's dangerous atmosphere with the same careful precision they've taught Corbin—speaking in gestures when words might carry to the wrong ears, appearing with food before he realizes he's hungry, disappearing entirely when his father's research takes dark turns.
Personality & House Preference
Personality:
When entering any room, Corbin's eyes find the exits first, then the person with the most authority. Who speaks first? Who defers? Who has their wand hand free? These calculations happen before he even considers where he might sit or whether he should speak. Years of navigating his father's unpredictable moods have taught him that the wrong word at the wrong moment can result in magical silence lasting days. A lesson that transforms every social interaction into a careful negotiation.
Authority figures require particular attention. Corbin watches their faces, listens to the spaces between their words, measures the weight of their footsteps. Are they the type who prefer deference or engagement? Do they punish questions or reward them? His father's colleagues have taught him that power comes in many forms, some more dangerous than others, and that survival often depends on recognizing which type he's facing before they notice him watching.
Words are tools to be selected with precision. Corbin speaks when he has calculated that silence would be more conspicuous than speech, choosing phrases that reveal little while suggesting cooperation. Around his peers, this careful verbal economy often reads as aloofness, though it stems from something closer to self-preservation. He has learned that careless honesty is a luxury he cannot afford.
The few individuals who have shown him genuine kindness—Squinty chief among them—earn a loyalty that borders on fierce. These relationships exist in careful compartments within his mind, protected spaces where he allows himself to feel something approaching safety. When someone proves themselves safe, Corbin's natural intelligence and dry humor emerge, though always tempered by the awareness that circumstances can change and people can disappoint.
His father's worldview regarding blood purity and magical superiority forms the foundation of how Corbin understands the world. These are not opinions to him. They are simply facts, as fundamental as gravity. Recent events at Hogwarts have only reinforced what he has always been taught: that progressive ideals lead to chaos, that tradition provides protection, and that vigilance against corruption is not paranoia but wisdom.
History:
The Donahue family traces its pureblood lineage back centuries, maintaining their ancestral seat in a crumbling castle on the Scottish coast. Lord Vulpes Donahue, Corbin's father, achieved recognition as a scholar of Dark Arts before retreating from public academic life to pursue private research.
Corbin was born on Samhain night 1906, the only child of this union. His early childhood was marked by his mother's unexplained disappearance when he was six. Lady Ariana simply vanished one morning, leaving behind no note or explanation. Lord Donahue refused to discuss her departure, and Corbin learned not to ask questions that might provoke his father's anger.
Following his mother's disappearance, Corbin's upbringing became increasingly isolated. Lord Donahue, convinced that the outside world posed threats to magical society, kept his son confined to the castle grounds. Formal education was provided through private tutoring, focusing heavily on magical theory, pureblood genealogy, and the supposed dangers of muggle influence. When Corbin's natural curiosity led to inconvenient questions or interruptions, his father would silence him with magic - sometimes for hours, occasionally for days.
The house elves became Corbin's primary companions and, in many ways, his true family. They fed him when his father forgot meals, mended his clothes when he outgrew them, and provided the emotional support absent from his relationship with Lord Donahue. Through them, he learned to appreciate the complex hierarchies that existed even among those others might dismiss as servants, developing a pragmatic understanding of how power and loyalty functioned at every level of magical society.
Occasionally, Lord Donahue would host visitors - other Pureblood lords and ladies, fellow Dark Arts scholars, and sometimes individuals whose very presence made the house elves disappear entirely from the corridors. Corbin was always confined to his room during these meetings, but he learned to read the signs: which visitors made his father's voice drop to whispers, which ones caused Squinty to triple-check the locks on his door, which conversations ended with the sharp crack of Disapparition rather than polite farewells. These experiences taught him that power often came in frightening forms and that his father moved in circles where violence was an accepted tool.
The Great War's conclusion in 1918 seemed to validate many of Lord Donahue's warnings about muggle nature. The unprecedented scale of destruction and the new methods of warfare served as evidence that muggles were fundamentally different from and more dangerous than magical beings. When the Halloway conspiracy was exposed, revealing how close Hogwarts had come to admitting muggle students, Lord Donahue's years of warnings about progressive infiltration appeared not paranoid but prophetic.
Corbin's first two years at Hogwarts have been a gradual adjustment to social interaction outside his father's rigid household. He struggles with the casual friendships other students form, uncertain about appropriate boundaries and wary of revealing too much about his unconventional upbringing. His academic performance is strong, particularly in subjects requiring independent research and theoretical analysis. However, he remains cautious about speaking in class unless directly addressed, and becomes notably more reserved around professors and other authority figures.
House Preference:
Slytherin
Year Preference:
Third Year
Prompt Response:
The letter arrived on a gray morning in July 1918. Corbin heard the owl before he saw it - talons scraping against stone as it settled on the crumbling battlements outside the library window.
His father's quill stopped moving across the parchment. The scratching sound hung in the air.
Corbin kept his eyes on the genealogical chart he was copying, but his shoulders tensed. Owls this early usually meant bad news. The steady tap-tap-tap of beak against glass made his stomach clench.
Lord Donahue's chair scraped against the floor. Footsteps crossed to the window. The latch clicked open.
"Sit still," his father said, though Corbin hadn't moved.
The heavy parchment crackled as his father turned it over. Corbin risked a glance upward. His father's jaw was tight, the muscle jumping beneath the skin. Not anger exactly. Something else.
The silence stretched. Corbin's quill dripped ink onto the chart, ruining hours of careful work. He didn't dare move to blot it.
"So, it did come after all." The words hit like cold water. Corbin's hand cramped around his quill as his father held out the letter. The Hogwarts seal stared up at him from thick parchment that felt warm from his father's grip.
His fingers shook as he broke the wax. The words blurred together at first - Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, pleased to inform you, first of September. Standard phrases that meant a new life for him.
His chest felt too tight. Hogwarts meant leaving the castle. Leaving the endless gray corridors and the rooms that smelled of old books and older secrets. It meant other children. Teachers who weren't his father. Maybe even friends.
The thought was too large to hold.
"You will go." His father started pacing, boots heavy on the stone floor. "The Donahue name requires it. But remember what I've taught you about pretty words and dangerous ideas."
Corbin nodded, though his throat felt thick. His father's warnings about the new headmaster - Halloway - echoed in his mind. Progressive ideas. Corruption disguised as education. Threats to everything their family represented.
"Write to me immediately if anything seems... inappropriate," his father continued. His hand settled on Corbin's shoulder, fingers digging in just hard enough to leave marks. "Remember who you are."
The weight of the letter felt heavier than it should. Corbin left the study with careful, measured steps, though something in his chest wanted to run.
In the corridor, Squinty appeared from nowhere the way house elves did. The old elf's eyes flicked to the letter, then to Corbin's face. He said nothing, but his ears twitched forward slightly. Almost like approval.
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