Post by CALLUM BUTTERWORTH on Nov 28, 2024 5:23:50 GMT -5
ministry file
CALLUM BUTTERWORTH
CALLUM BUTTERWORTH
THE BASICS
Age: Eleven
Birthday: 23 October, 2014
Blood Status: Half-blood
Location of Residence: Carlisle, England, United Kingdom
Occupation: N/A
School: Hogwarts School
House: Slytherin
Group?: None
DIGGING DEEPER
Appearance:
Three Characteristics You Think You Are: Clever, chatty, and self-indulgent – if only because selfish sounds unflattering.
Three Characteristics Others Think You Are: Absentminded, persistent, and optimistic – too much so, on occasion.
Hobbies or Interests: While Callum very well can’t have someone catching him studying lest his position as village (dormitory?) idiot be usurped, he’s an avid reader of fantasy novels and has accumulated quite the collection of Muggle comics. He’s also eager to learn more about magical flora and fauna, with a special interest to b
e taken in more dangerous sorts along the lines of the Whomping Willow. Additionally, though he’s never been the sportiest of characters, Quidditch has piqued his interest in a way no other game has, and he’s embarked on a massive search to see which team deserves his support. Other than Slytherin’s, of course.
Career Aspirations: Once upon a time Callum had desired a cushy profession in politics or scientific research, something like parliamentary adviser or parmesan ambassador or professor of awesomeness or whatever would get him free tickets into first class and a position of power. After his acceptance into Hogwarts, however, he’s had his sights set on becoming a word-class Herbologist and naming at least one plant after his mother. Partly because he wants fame and glory and a less frumpy textbook as required reading, partly because his mother said he’s only allowed a pet once he proves he can take care of houseplants.
Personal Aspirations: All of Callum’s plots and plans can be boiled down into three debatably achievable aspirations: to get rich, to get famous, and to get an appointment with his biological father so he can shove the first two points in the old man’s face. In the shorter term, though, he reckons collecting as many smart, preferably pureblood friends as he can to propel him upwards of the class’s bottom while doing the least academic work possible is a noble objective.
Family:
• Mother - Sherry Butterworth, 36-years-young, Muggle bartender at the sort of pub that displays its record of failed health inspections with great pride
No matter what’s on the front of Chocolate Frog Cards, Sherry Butterworth was, is, and forever will be Callum’s greatest hero. Crude as she can be about her disappointment in his inattention and impatience at school, Callum knows she only wants the best for them – for him. The Butterworths had never been a wealthy family, and just when Sherry had come top of her class at university, she’d come down with a case of morning sickness that spelled a much more winding path to becoming a doctor. Still, she’s stayed determined to provide for her family, and Callum has a niggling suspicion she expects him to share that devotion to a good career once he graduates. The million times she’s told him that to his face helped him figure that out in record time.
• Father - Xavier Smythe, 37-years-old, Muggle marketing director at some billious hotel worth negative billions
Every piece of information about Xavier Smythe, from his full name to his whereabouts to whenceforth he came to England in the first place, is utterly unknown to his son. What Callum does know from his mother’s hidden collection of old letters from him is his surname, his chicken scratch signature, and that he really did love Sherry sometime between giving her a baby, being given a baby, and promptly dropping the pasty bundle of joy along with their relationship. Callum’s come up with a million histories for his old man, with his most recent past positing X. Smythe as a lesser-known pureblood always away on one dangerous dragon-taming assignment or another.
• Grandmother - Shirley Butterworth, deceased, Squib
Nana Shirley was mysterious in life, death, and everything in between. The tragic tale her daughter and grandson had the privilege of hearing dealed in vagaries and dictionaries of Scottish vulgarity, taking an erratic trail through tales of a teenage runaway who wanted nothing to do with a small life on a sheep farm. The truth had more to do with her Muggle-born parents shunning their daughter when her eleventh birthday was interrupted by a ram getting loose instead of a letter from their beloved alma mater. While Shirley reconciled with said parents later in life, moved to Hogsmeade, and sometimes rebranded their magical mishaps from their time as bedtime stories for Sherry and Callum, funny fake names and all, the two could barely tell sarcasm from signs of dementia with her, much less fact from fiction.
Relationship with Parents: Growing boy he is, Callum’s gained some resentment for his parents over the years, with his father having abandoned him and his fussy mother hovering overhead any time he dares pursue something one centimetre out of her sight, but deep down, he much desires a happy, tight-knit family and would do anything to reunite his parents. Sure, he and his mother can argue about anything from his dismal history scores to her tendency to put the toilet paper the wrong way round, yet they’re close as can be and would sacrifice anything for one another. Despite his father sparing absolutely nothing for him but a few genomes, however, Callum loves the man who wrote his mother endless gushing letters and is desperate to find him.
Relationship with Siblings: Not applicable as of now. Callum would quite like to keep it that way.
OPINION
Bloody inconvenient is what it is. Callum’s not got half his thick head wrapped around wixen politics just yet, but notwithstanding that he believes there may be legitimate worries about magic dying out behind blood purism, it’s impossible to enjoy such a system when it works in everyone else’s favour. He’d prefer it disappear sooner than later, but as long as it’s purebloods that are in power, he’s not going to strut about intent on dismantling the status quo. No, no, he’ll masquerade as a half-blood – a quarter-blood, at the very least – and leave the revolution to folks with more work ethic. Or ethics in general.
In Callum’s mind, this sport’s only fault was not working its way into his life from the moment he popped out of the womb. It’s got all the flash and rabid fealty of regular sports plus flying and magical equipment minus any real danger. At least, that’s what he’s hoping, being that he hasn’t seen any angry parents march up to Hogwarts and toss helmets at the players. In that aspect alone, it’s an incredible upgrade from playing footy at school. He doesn’t mind scores or streaks, mostly finding wonderment in the game’s tactics and death-defying positions. Not to mention all the alliterative team names make for nice mnemonics. Such is why he only pays attention to teams named after magical creatures.
Well, they’re sort of beneath him now, aren’t they? Callum always was rather unfond of his old school’s arbitrary rules, and being quote-unquote proven unique by the magical lottery’s only given him more reason to shrug off the Muggle world. He’s not keen on being counted as one of them, that’s for sure. He is a bit concerned about how the magical world’s troubles might affect his mum’s coworkers, who’ve raised him to near-equal extents as his blood relatives, but since being accepted into his hoggy, warty new school, he’s resolved to avoid Muggles as much as possible and reduce the risk of being expelled for blabbing about how amazing a wizard he’ll be.
There is no better method of teaching, Callum thinks, than doing. He’s not too comfortable handling a wand and barking out nonsense in hopes of not humiliating himself in front of all his peers, but being an attention-seeking city boy, he does relish in the feeling of dirt beneath his nails and the image of his portrait smiling from the pages of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi Revised or something similar. They’re good feelings, being needed and being a nurturer, and the subject has allowed him to see a less tactless side of himself he was beyond shocked by. Also, the plants have funny names.
In the unlikely event Callum loses all hope of becoming the best Herbologist there ever was, his next calling is to pull off an even unlikelier heist and create copies of the Sorting Hat. Never again will matchmakers or workplaces worry about compatibility. He wonders on a daily basis why – or if – the Sorting Hat hasn’t been used to make money, with parents wanting their legacies in choice houses. He’s never let his mind wander to the notion that the Sorting Hat might ever make a mistake, although he feels his maladroit nature and Muggle heritage must make fellow Slytherins speculate.
PENSIEVE
IT IS THE WINTER OF 2021 WHEN CALLUM BUTTERWORTH LEARNS HE ISN’T THE CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE. He comes home from school moping and moaning and making a mess out of the peeling, stippled wallpaper as he melodramatically slides down, insisting to his teddy bear that his life has been absolutely ruined, only he has a lisp which makes him wet the teddy bear which only makes his eyes wetter. His grandmother rushes to his aid, though not without ensuring he sees her eyes – both the normal and the amblyopic – roll several times. When he’s finally able to hiccup out something coherent, she’s treated to an account of how their school trip to a Scottish castle’s been cancelled. You know, on account of it becoming a new country soon or whatever. He’d buried himself in all those boring facts about Scotland in preparation for nothing! Nothing! He’s devastated! He’ll never recover! But his grandmother tells him it’s for the best, and he believes her, but he doesn’t believe she’s telling him the whole truth when she says the trouble’s nothing to do with them.
IT IS THE AUTUMN OF 2022 WHEN CALLUM BUTTERWORTH LEARNS HIS GRANDMOTHER IS WEIRD. She stumbles in for Sunday dinner with bandages stuck to her boots. Callum, exemplary son he is, halts sweeping the glass he broke to eavesdrop on her explanation. He hadn’t considered her explanation would be as confusing as her circumstances, harping on about hogs and festivals and that she’d ought to write her last will and testament before another curse gets to her. It makes no sense, not when his nan was the one who taught him how to curse. Later, when Nana Shirley’s snoring on the couch, Callum asks his mother why she doesn’t just stay with them if where she lives is so dangerous. His mother sighs and says some people confuse danger with fun. He thinks he understands.
IT IS THE SUMMER OF 2024 WHEN CALLUM BUTTERWORTH LEARNS LYING IS BAD. It’s a little late for a birthday present and it’s a lot late for a Mother’s Day present, which is precisely why Callum has to break into his mother’s bedroom and go through all her drawers to find out what she likes. To his shock, he finds out who she liked: his father, who left her with a letter and an envelope of more pounds than Callum had ever seen in his life. Who left him. He’s devastated in a strange way that can’t be conveyed with exclamation points. Perhaps ‘X Smythe’ will return if Callum’s top of his class for once…
IT IS THE SPRING OF 2025 WHEN CALLUM BUTTERWORTH LEARNS LYING IS GOOD. He returns from a week of bedrest to find classmates he’s never spoken to before begging to know where he’s been, how he’s doing, whether he knows how boring classes have been without his paper aeroplanes. He tells them he had throat surgery, and all of a sudden the smart kids are sharing their homework with him for the small, small price of another story about how he’d been slashed by a rabid dog he had to defeat with nothing more than a pencil. And, well, he did have throat surgery – his tonsils had been in his throat, after all. So everyone gets answers to their questions. It’s a win all around. His mum always said politicians worked the public with their lies. His form teacher always said he ought to work smarter, apply himself to the task at hand. Whoever said working smarter meant working harder?
IT IS THE SUMMER OF 2026 WHEN CALLUM BUTTERWORTH LEARNS HE’S A WIZARD. He believes it much faster than his mother does, if that says anything. Really, he’d been yearning for a change of scene since his grandmother snuffed into sleep and never woke up, and finally getting his school trip to a Scottish castle isn’t salting the deal one bit. The rush of trading polos for robes and maths worksheets for A History of Magic is a blur in his brain; what he really remembers is how tightly his mum hugs him before the train leaves. How he can feel the warmth of that hug as he crosses into the castle is a different sort of magic altogether.
ROLEPLAY EXAMPLE
Dear Mum, Callum began, and that was about where he ended, too. He groaned, crumpling up the parchment until it was but a crinked, wrinkled, stinking ball of mortification betwixt his fingers. He sat on the fringes of the lake, blades of grass prickling his bum to his soul. The only letter he’d ever written before was to Santa Claus, and considering the lack of a floor-length beard on his face, he reckoned he’d mucked something up then and he’d muck something up now. Was most Muggle technology a breach on the magical culture he’d tried so hard to assimilate into? Yes. Would he have killed for a phone, even one of those vintage landlines with plastic buttons that poked out? Also yes. Did purebloods even use the word ‘mum’? Did they use something much fancier and shmancier derived from a language that died before the universe itself was born? Did he care?
The boy retrieved a fresh slip of parchment from his pocket. Mum had to get a letter. He had to get it together.
Callum dipped his pinky finger in his inkwell and, with four splattering swashes, created a smiley face. A picture spoke a thousand words, and though he was never entirely sure how many zeroes were in a thousand, that picture would have to do.
ALIAS: Cade
OTHER CHARACTERS: None
WELCOME BUDDY?: Yes please!
CANON?: No
WANTED AD?: No
Age: Eleven
Birthday: 23 October, 2014
Blood Status: Half-blood
Location of Residence: Carlisle, England, United Kingdom
Occupation: N/A
School: Hogwarts School
House: Slytherin
Group?: None
DIGGING DEEPER
Appearance:
Three Characteristics You Think You Are: Clever, chatty, and self-indulgent – if only because selfish sounds unflattering.
Three Characteristics Others Think You Are: Absentminded, persistent, and optimistic – too much so, on occasion.
Hobbies or Interests: While Callum very well can’t have someone catching him studying lest his position as village (dormitory?) idiot be usurped, he’s an avid reader of fantasy novels and has accumulated quite the collection of Muggle comics. He’s also eager to learn more about magical flora and fauna, with a special interest to b
e taken in more dangerous sorts along the lines of the Whomping Willow. Additionally, though he’s never been the sportiest of characters, Quidditch has piqued his interest in a way no other game has, and he’s embarked on a massive search to see which team deserves his support. Other than Slytherin’s, of course.
Career Aspirations: Once upon a time Callum had desired a cushy profession in politics or scientific research, something like parliamentary adviser or parmesan ambassador or professor of awesomeness or whatever would get him free tickets into first class and a position of power. After his acceptance into Hogwarts, however, he’s had his sights set on becoming a word-class Herbologist and naming at least one plant after his mother. Partly because he wants fame and glory and a less frumpy textbook as required reading, partly because his mother said he’s only allowed a pet once he proves he can take care of houseplants.
Personal Aspirations: All of Callum’s plots and plans can be boiled down into three debatably achievable aspirations: to get rich, to get famous, and to get an appointment with his biological father so he can shove the first two points in the old man’s face. In the shorter term, though, he reckons collecting as many smart, preferably pureblood friends as he can to propel him upwards of the class’s bottom while doing the least academic work possible is a noble objective.
Family:
• Mother - Sherry Butterworth, 36-years-young, Muggle bartender at the sort of pub that displays its record of failed health inspections with great pride
No matter what’s on the front of Chocolate Frog Cards, Sherry Butterworth was, is, and forever will be Callum’s greatest hero. Crude as she can be about her disappointment in his inattention and impatience at school, Callum knows she only wants the best for them – for him. The Butterworths had never been a wealthy family, and just when Sherry had come top of her class at university, she’d come down with a case of morning sickness that spelled a much more winding path to becoming a doctor. Still, she’s stayed determined to provide for her family, and Callum has a niggling suspicion she expects him to share that devotion to a good career once he graduates. The million times she’s told him that to his face helped him figure that out in record time.
• Father - Xavier Smythe, 37-years-old, Muggle marketing director at some billious hotel worth negative billions
Every piece of information about Xavier Smythe, from his full name to his whereabouts to whenceforth he came to England in the first place, is utterly unknown to his son. What Callum does know from his mother’s hidden collection of old letters from him is his surname, his chicken scratch signature, and that he really did love Sherry sometime between giving her a baby, being given a baby, and promptly dropping the pasty bundle of joy along with their relationship. Callum’s come up with a million histories for his old man, with his most recent past positing X. Smythe as a lesser-known pureblood always away on one dangerous dragon-taming assignment or another.
• Grandmother - Shirley Butterworth, deceased, Squib
Nana Shirley was mysterious in life, death, and everything in between. The tragic tale her daughter and grandson had the privilege of hearing dealed in vagaries and dictionaries of Scottish vulgarity, taking an erratic trail through tales of a teenage runaway who wanted nothing to do with a small life on a sheep farm. The truth had more to do with her Muggle-born parents shunning their daughter when her eleventh birthday was interrupted by a ram getting loose instead of a letter from their beloved alma mater. While Shirley reconciled with said parents later in life, moved to Hogsmeade, and sometimes rebranded their magical mishaps from their time as bedtime stories for Sherry and Callum, funny fake names and all, the two could barely tell sarcasm from signs of dementia with her, much less fact from fiction.
Relationship with Parents: Growing boy he is, Callum’s gained some resentment for his parents over the years, with his father having abandoned him and his fussy mother hovering overhead any time he dares pursue something one centimetre out of her sight, but deep down, he much desires a happy, tight-knit family and would do anything to reunite his parents. Sure, he and his mother can argue about anything from his dismal history scores to her tendency to put the toilet paper the wrong way round, yet they’re close as can be and would sacrifice anything for one another. Despite his father sparing absolutely nothing for him but a few genomes, however, Callum loves the man who wrote his mother endless gushing letters and is desperate to find him.
Relationship with Siblings: Not applicable as of now. Callum would quite like to keep it that way.
OPINION
- Blood Purism
Bloody inconvenient is what it is. Callum’s not got half his thick head wrapped around wixen politics just yet, but notwithstanding that he believes there may be legitimate worries about magic dying out behind blood purism, it’s impossible to enjoy such a system when it works in everyone else’s favour. He’d prefer it disappear sooner than later, but as long as it’s purebloods that are in power, he’s not going to strut about intent on dismantling the status quo. No, no, he’ll masquerade as a half-blood – a quarter-blood, at the very least – and leave the revolution to folks with more work ethic. Or ethics in general.
- Quidditch
In Callum’s mind, this sport’s only fault was not working its way into his life from the moment he popped out of the womb. It’s got all the flash and rabid fealty of regular sports plus flying and magical equipment minus any real danger. At least, that’s what he’s hoping, being that he hasn’t seen any angry parents march up to Hogwarts and toss helmets at the players. In that aspect alone, it’s an incredible upgrade from playing footy at school. He doesn’t mind scores or streaks, mostly finding wonderment in the game’s tactics and death-defying positions. Not to mention all the alliterative team names make for nice mnemonics. Such is why he only pays attention to teams named after magical creatures.
- Muggles
Well, they’re sort of beneath him now, aren’t they? Callum always was rather unfond of his old school’s arbitrary rules, and being quote-unquote proven unique by the magical lottery’s only given him more reason to shrug off the Muggle world. He’s not keen on being counted as one of them, that’s for sure. He is a bit concerned about how the magical world’s troubles might affect his mum’s coworkers, who’ve raised him to near-equal extents as his blood relatives, but since being accepted into his hoggy, warty new school, he’s resolved to avoid Muggles as much as possible and reduce the risk of being expelled for blabbing about how amazing a wizard he’ll be.
- Herbology
There is no better method of teaching, Callum thinks, than doing. He’s not too comfortable handling a wand and barking out nonsense in hopes of not humiliating himself in front of all his peers, but being an attention-seeking city boy, he does relish in the feeling of dirt beneath his nails and the image of his portrait smiling from the pages of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi Revised or something similar. They’re good feelings, being needed and being a nurturer, and the subject has allowed him to see a less tactless side of himself he was beyond shocked by. Also, the plants have funny names.
- The Sorting Hat
In the unlikely event Callum loses all hope of becoming the best Herbologist there ever was, his next calling is to pull off an even unlikelier heist and create copies of the Sorting Hat. Never again will matchmakers or workplaces worry about compatibility. He wonders on a daily basis why – or if – the Sorting Hat hasn’t been used to make money, with parents wanting their legacies in choice houses. He’s never let his mind wander to the notion that the Sorting Hat might ever make a mistake, although he feels his maladroit nature and Muggle heritage must make fellow Slytherins speculate.
PENSIEVE
IT IS THE WINTER OF 2021 WHEN CALLUM BUTTERWORTH LEARNS HE ISN’T THE CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE. He comes home from school moping and moaning and making a mess out of the peeling, stippled wallpaper as he melodramatically slides down, insisting to his teddy bear that his life has been absolutely ruined, only he has a lisp which makes him wet the teddy bear which only makes his eyes wetter. His grandmother rushes to his aid, though not without ensuring he sees her eyes – both the normal and the amblyopic – roll several times. When he’s finally able to hiccup out something coherent, she’s treated to an account of how their school trip to a Scottish castle’s been cancelled. You know, on account of it becoming a new country soon or whatever. He’d buried himself in all those boring facts about Scotland in preparation for nothing! Nothing! He’s devastated! He’ll never recover! But his grandmother tells him it’s for the best, and he believes her, but he doesn’t believe she’s telling him the whole truth when she says the trouble’s nothing to do with them.
IT IS THE AUTUMN OF 2022 WHEN CALLUM BUTTERWORTH LEARNS HIS GRANDMOTHER IS WEIRD. She stumbles in for Sunday dinner with bandages stuck to her boots. Callum, exemplary son he is, halts sweeping the glass he broke to eavesdrop on her explanation. He hadn’t considered her explanation would be as confusing as her circumstances, harping on about hogs and festivals and that she’d ought to write her last will and testament before another curse gets to her. It makes no sense, not when his nan was the one who taught him how to curse. Later, when Nana Shirley’s snoring on the couch, Callum asks his mother why she doesn’t just stay with them if where she lives is so dangerous. His mother sighs and says some people confuse danger with fun. He thinks he understands.
IT IS THE SUMMER OF 2024 WHEN CALLUM BUTTERWORTH LEARNS LYING IS BAD. It’s a little late for a birthday present and it’s a lot late for a Mother’s Day present, which is precisely why Callum has to break into his mother’s bedroom and go through all her drawers to find out what she likes. To his shock, he finds out who she liked: his father, who left her with a letter and an envelope of more pounds than Callum had ever seen in his life. Who left him. He’s devastated in a strange way that can’t be conveyed with exclamation points. Perhaps ‘X Smythe’ will return if Callum’s top of his class for once…
IT IS THE SPRING OF 2025 WHEN CALLUM BUTTERWORTH LEARNS LYING IS GOOD. He returns from a week of bedrest to find classmates he’s never spoken to before begging to know where he’s been, how he’s doing, whether he knows how boring classes have been without his paper aeroplanes. He tells them he had throat surgery, and all of a sudden the smart kids are sharing their homework with him for the small, small price of another story about how he’d been slashed by a rabid dog he had to defeat with nothing more than a pencil. And, well, he did have throat surgery – his tonsils had been in his throat, after all. So everyone gets answers to their questions. It’s a win all around. His mum always said politicians worked the public with their lies. His form teacher always said he ought to work smarter, apply himself to the task at hand. Whoever said working smarter meant working harder?
IT IS THE SUMMER OF 2026 WHEN CALLUM BUTTERWORTH LEARNS HE’S A WIZARD. He believes it much faster than his mother does, if that says anything. Really, he’d been yearning for a change of scene since his grandmother snuffed into sleep and never woke up, and finally getting his school trip to a Scottish castle isn’t salting the deal one bit. The rush of trading polos for robes and maths worksheets for A History of Magic is a blur in his brain; what he really remembers is how tightly his mum hugs him before the train leaves. How he can feel the warmth of that hug as he crosses into the castle is a different sort of magic altogether.
ROLEPLAY EXAMPLE
Dear Mum, Callum began, and that was about where he ended, too. He groaned, crumpling up the parchment until it was but a crinked, wrinkled, stinking ball of mortification betwixt his fingers. He sat on the fringes of the lake, blades of grass prickling his bum to his soul. The only letter he’d ever written before was to Santa Claus, and considering the lack of a floor-length beard on his face, he reckoned he’d mucked something up then and he’d muck something up now. Was most Muggle technology a breach on the magical culture he’d tried so hard to assimilate into? Yes. Would he have killed for a phone, even one of those vintage landlines with plastic buttons that poked out? Also yes. Did purebloods even use the word ‘mum’? Did they use something much fancier and shmancier derived from a language that died before the universe itself was born? Did he care?
The boy retrieved a fresh slip of parchment from his pocket. Mum had to get a letter. He had to get it together.
Callum dipped his pinky finger in his inkwell and, with four splattering swashes, created a smiley face. A picture spoke a thousand words, and though he was never entirely sure how many zeroes were in a thousand, that picture would have to do.
ALIAS: Cade
OTHER CHARACTERS: None
WELCOME BUDDY?: Yes please!
CANON?: No
WANTED AD?: No
