Post by James Laurent on Nov 27, 2012 7:07:39 GMT -6
Name: James Oliver Laurent
Nicknames: Mostly goes by Jamie but he doesn't really mind what you call him, as long as it's not offensive. He hates 'Jimmy' which of course means Faith calls him it all.the.time.
Age: 26 (b: 15th August 1986)
Blood: pureblood
Appearance: James is tall at 6 foot 3 and slight, almost alarmingly skinny when people get a proper look at him (thankfully very few people do), and he is perpetually the kind of person you'd want to cook a nice meal for to fatten him up a bit. (Disclaimer: it won't fatten him up in the slightest, no amount of home-cooked meals has in the past. He will forever be just that little bit wiry and gangling in appearance and build.) He has a pale but clear complexion, and a rather soft face with what you would call 'pretty' or perhaps slightly 'effeminate' features. Piercing green eyes, flanked by dark eyelashes, and usually a pair of reading glasses sit below an oft-furrowed brow. He has a natural tendency to fix things and people with an unwavering, slightly intense glance when he is intrigued or concentrating - this tends to unsettle the latter grouping. Meanwhile, his hair is dark brown and mostly just grows in every direction so if he hasn't made the effort to tame it on a morning, it does very much have the floppy, bedhead appearance. He tends to be clean shaven but if he's in a rush on a morning (more often than not he prioritises a cup of tea over actually shaving) or in the middle of some serious research then he does end up sporting slight stubble.
His dress sense leans towards the conservative, dressing in suit trousers and a shirt at the very least for work every day, and he likes a good ol' tie or waistcoat as much as the next slightly uptight Englishman. Except such people are usually middle aged and he isn't. Describing him as a 40-year old trapped inside the body of a mid 20-year old isn't much of a stretch or hyperbole, to be honest. His 'look', if anything, is a tad tweedy English professor mixed with a spot o' hipster - think Matt Smith's 11th Doctor and you're not far-off to be honest.
Personality: It's no surprise that James is mostly driven by academia and the pursuit of knowledge and it comes across immediately in his personality on first meeting. If you don't know him very well he tends to appear rude, unintentionally so, as he will often continue working on something whilst engaging someone in conversation (he can just multitask) because he likes to devote as much time as possible to his research. It could be said he's a bit of a workaholic in this sense, often staying late or pulling all-nighters in the office when in the middle of some tricky research or coding. When he becomes truly interested in something he becomes dangerously interested in it, pursuing every avenue down to the very last minutest of (sometimes largely insignificant) details and often working himself up into an investigative frenzy on such occasions, complete with very little sleep, no food, too much caffeine and cigarettes, and manic, jittery behaviour. However, if you manage to entice him away from his world of musty old books, you'll find he's actually an incredibly giving, kind, and thoughtful person, somewhere underneath all that reserved, introverted layering. He has an incredibly dry sense of humour and, because of this, very few people have actually managed to make him laugh - if you've made him crack a smile, you're practically a comedy genius. He prefers intelligent satire to crass one-liners, to put it another way.
He's not nearly as uptight as he probably appears at first glance - and yes he is aware he comes across as such to practically everyone - and is actually quite sociable, within his own little circles and interests. He is surprisingly popular with the ladies, much to the utter bafflement of some of his colleagues (namely Derek MacKinnon). The thing is, intelligence and articulacy (and a bit of a sense of enigma about the 'real you, away from work') never go amiss and that coupled with an inbuilt sense of old-time chivalry and natural gentlemanly behaviour are probably what have led him to be oddly... prolific with dating, shall we say. Well there's that and his downright 'devil-may-care attitude' to all sexual encounters... and matters of the heart even.
Background: His mother Aimée Laurent had an affair with a married man (Robert Lehane) which lasted for just under a year before, after discovering her husband's infidelity, Mrs Lehane told a repentent Robert to choose a family/life - he chose to work on his marriage instead of supporting his pregnant mistress. James has never met his father - in fact he'd prefer not to - though has, tentatively, spoken to his half-siblings in the past but they aren't what you'd call 'close'. His half-sister, Faith, in truth terrifies him and she tends to bully him just a little bit at work.
He was raised primarily by his French grandfather (Jean-Luc) who moved to Aimee's small Berkshire home, located in the village of Clifton, following his wife's death, an event which came just before Aimee announced her pregnancy. After giving birth to James, his grandfather stayed at home and raised the boy because Aimee wanted to work to support him – she refused to allow her retired (and decently well-off) father to pay for her, she wanted to make her own way in the world and refused to be dependent on somebody else. And so James lived a happy, if secluded, life in the Berkshire countryside, a childhood filled primarily with books and learning. His mother is now a successful high-up in the International Magical Cooperation department of the Ministry of Magic though he rarely mentions this to anyone and tries not to be seen with his mother within the Ministry – he, very much like her, doesn’t accept hand-outs or help to make his way in life and wouldn’t ever ask her to use her position to secure him a job or a promotion.
He went to Hogwarts when the time came and was surprisingly sorted into Slytherin. He never quite found his feet there amongst his more cunning, ambitious peers but made efforts to make connections and friendships for the sake of getting on in school, just like he pretended to like Quidditch and was a proud supporter of the House team despite the fact that he loathed the sport and most of the people who were on his team. Mostly he just wanted to do what he could to make his time at Hogwarts as easy for himself as possible (read: he didn't want to be labelled the geeky outsider and get bullied relentlessly, as he probably would have if he'd shown his true self completely). In terms of academia, he flourished in Arithmancy, History of Magic and Ancient Runes, preferring the theoretical aspects of the magic world than practical application in the form of Defence Against the Dark Arts or Transfiguration.
James graduated in 2004 and quickly moved into the Department of Law Enforcement the summer he graduated in an internship position where he was basically passed around various positions in the department and mostly filled lunch and coffee orders. However, he did learn a lot about the inner, detailed workings of the department and it is this knowledge which really helped him to impress the important higher-ups in the Ministry. After being an intern for a year he progressed into a paid position within the Auror department, working as a researcher and techie amongst the likes of Andrew Holloway and Martin Moss. He was then seconded to the French Ministry of Magic. Whilst there, he lived in Paris and constantly found himself thrown into the company of a certain Rhys Armitage, partly due to the pushing to be friendly from their respective french parents and partly because both of them tended to gravitate towards the experimental, communist-sympathising, coffee-house-loitering scene. For James it was genuine interest in discussing music, art, literature, and philosophy, for Rhys it might have been more to do with the drugs and free love aspect but nevertheless the two boys ended up crossing paths a hell of a lot. James was also experimental in the same way as his younger brethren, dabbling in the odd affair with older women and other young men, but he was much more secretive and discreet about the whole business.
After working a 3-year stint in the French Ministry, helping them to reorganise the tech section of their own Law Enforcement department, he returned to his job as a researcher and techie within the Auror department in the British Ministry. He has since re-found his bearings and feet and has become the go-to guy for anything code-related that was puzzling the Aurors as he has brilliant lateral thinking abilities which, along with his ability to retain a hell of a lot of historical information, would have made him an excellent codebreaker had he pursued it as a career upon graduation. He is something of a Giles figure, relishing the opportunity to crack open dusty old scrolls from centuries past, but unlike the Sunnydale librarian (yes, he is a Buffy fan himself) he is not averse to technology; in fact for most of his life he has been helping to design tech which will not be affected by magical concentration and vice versa. He is one of the forerunners in this field of research and is often consulted by the Ministry on such matters.
Characteristics: Though quite secretive in himself, he is extremely twitchy and jittery when required to be so, especially if that involves lying under pressure - hence why he'd be terrible at actually in-the-field missions, not to mention his lack of stamina or physical brawn. He does play squash with colleagues after work twice weekly but that's about as much as he gets involved in sporting activities. The only thing that keeps him healthy, probably, is the fact the squash games and his penchant for walking considerable distances on weekend mornings after breakfast.
Other:
He lives by himself in a rather small, but homely, flat on the outskirts of London. His home is... basic, extremely cramped due to the amount of books and papers he has, but his house is a treasure trove, an Aladdin's cave of sorts, if you're interested in his area of research. You'd just have to avoid many stacks of precariously balanced books and find the floor through the mess and try to find James huddled somewhere clutching a book, his laptop and a cup of Earl Grey.
He speaks French as his grandfather practically raised him and could only speak fairly broken English himself. He's since also taught himself German and is proficient enough at it to get by.
He recently procured a tabby kitten named Hemingway from the litter of a friend's cat. No one is quite sure how the young, clumsy kitten manages to survive amongst the disorder that is James' office (yes, he accompanies him to work sometimes) and his flat. But he miraculously does... and garners affection from James that some of his friends and colleagues have never openly seen him bestow on a person so it's often quite startling and/or amusing to see him sat, cross-legged, on the floor of his office playing with the kitten.
He smokes like a chimney. It's a vice but he doesn't really drink alcohol regularly so he allows himself that one at least. The reason he tends to decline offered drinks is that when he does drink at a party or social occasion he likes red wine and whiskey (often one after the other in succession) and so has a habit of steadily drinking glasses upon glasses of the stuff without entirely realising it and getting steadily sozzled as the night wears on. He's very aware of this tendency of his and so tries to avoid touching a drop at all.
Oh and never, ever, take his tea away from him. Ever. Unless you want to be hexed.
Nicknames: Mostly goes by Jamie but he doesn't really mind what you call him, as long as it's not offensive. He hates 'Jimmy' which of course means Faith calls him it all.the.time.
Age: 26 (b: 15th August 1986)
Blood: pureblood
Appearance: James is tall at 6 foot 3 and slight, almost alarmingly skinny when people get a proper look at him (thankfully very few people do), and he is perpetually the kind of person you'd want to cook a nice meal for to fatten him up a bit. (Disclaimer: it won't fatten him up in the slightest, no amount of home-cooked meals has in the past. He will forever be just that little bit wiry and gangling in appearance and build.) He has a pale but clear complexion, and a rather soft face with what you would call 'pretty' or perhaps slightly 'effeminate' features. Piercing green eyes, flanked by dark eyelashes, and usually a pair of reading glasses sit below an oft-furrowed brow. He has a natural tendency to fix things and people with an unwavering, slightly intense glance when he is intrigued or concentrating - this tends to unsettle the latter grouping. Meanwhile, his hair is dark brown and mostly just grows in every direction so if he hasn't made the effort to tame it on a morning, it does very much have the floppy, bedhead appearance. He tends to be clean shaven but if he's in a rush on a morning (more often than not he prioritises a cup of tea over actually shaving) or in the middle of some serious research then he does end up sporting slight stubble.
His dress sense leans towards the conservative, dressing in suit trousers and a shirt at the very least for work every day, and he likes a good ol' tie or waistcoat as much as the next slightly uptight Englishman. Except such people are usually middle aged and he isn't. Describing him as a 40-year old trapped inside the body of a mid 20-year old isn't much of a stretch or hyperbole, to be honest. His 'look', if anything, is a tad tweedy English professor mixed with a spot o' hipster - think Matt Smith's 11th Doctor and you're not far-off to be honest.
Personality: It's no surprise that James is mostly driven by academia and the pursuit of knowledge and it comes across immediately in his personality on first meeting. If you don't know him very well he tends to appear rude, unintentionally so, as he will often continue working on something whilst engaging someone in conversation (he can just multitask) because he likes to devote as much time as possible to his research. It could be said he's a bit of a workaholic in this sense, often staying late or pulling all-nighters in the office when in the middle of some tricky research or coding. When he becomes truly interested in something he becomes dangerously interested in it, pursuing every avenue down to the very last minutest of (sometimes largely insignificant) details and often working himself up into an investigative frenzy on such occasions, complete with very little sleep, no food, too much caffeine and cigarettes, and manic, jittery behaviour. However, if you manage to entice him away from his world of musty old books, you'll find he's actually an incredibly giving, kind, and thoughtful person, somewhere underneath all that reserved, introverted layering. He has an incredibly dry sense of humour and, because of this, very few people have actually managed to make him laugh - if you've made him crack a smile, you're practically a comedy genius. He prefers intelligent satire to crass one-liners, to put it another way.
He's not nearly as uptight as he probably appears at first glance - and yes he is aware he comes across as such to practically everyone - and is actually quite sociable, within his own little circles and interests. He is surprisingly popular with the ladies, much to the utter bafflement of some of his colleagues (namely Derek MacKinnon). The thing is, intelligence and articulacy (and a bit of a sense of enigma about the 'real you, away from work') never go amiss and that coupled with an inbuilt sense of old-time chivalry and natural gentlemanly behaviour are probably what have led him to be oddly... prolific with dating, shall we say. Well there's that and his downright 'devil-may-care attitude' to all sexual encounters... and matters of the heart even.
Background: His mother Aimée Laurent had an affair with a married man (Robert Lehane) which lasted for just under a year before, after discovering her husband's infidelity, Mrs Lehane told a repentent Robert to choose a family/life - he chose to work on his marriage instead of supporting his pregnant mistress. James has never met his father - in fact he'd prefer not to - though has, tentatively, spoken to his half-siblings in the past but they aren't what you'd call 'close'. His half-sister, Faith, in truth terrifies him and she tends to bully him just a little bit at work.
He was raised primarily by his French grandfather (Jean-Luc) who moved to Aimee's small Berkshire home, located in the village of Clifton, following his wife's death, an event which came just before Aimee announced her pregnancy. After giving birth to James, his grandfather stayed at home and raised the boy because Aimee wanted to work to support him – she refused to allow her retired (and decently well-off) father to pay for her, she wanted to make her own way in the world and refused to be dependent on somebody else. And so James lived a happy, if secluded, life in the Berkshire countryside, a childhood filled primarily with books and learning. His mother is now a successful high-up in the International Magical Cooperation department of the Ministry of Magic though he rarely mentions this to anyone and tries not to be seen with his mother within the Ministry – he, very much like her, doesn’t accept hand-outs or help to make his way in life and wouldn’t ever ask her to use her position to secure him a job or a promotion.
He went to Hogwarts when the time came and was surprisingly sorted into Slytherin. He never quite found his feet there amongst his more cunning, ambitious peers but made efforts to make connections and friendships for the sake of getting on in school, just like he pretended to like Quidditch and was a proud supporter of the House team despite the fact that he loathed the sport and most of the people who were on his team. Mostly he just wanted to do what he could to make his time at Hogwarts as easy for himself as possible (read: he didn't want to be labelled the geeky outsider and get bullied relentlessly, as he probably would have if he'd shown his true self completely). In terms of academia, he flourished in Arithmancy, History of Magic and Ancient Runes, preferring the theoretical aspects of the magic world than practical application in the form of Defence Against the Dark Arts or Transfiguration.
James graduated in 2004 and quickly moved into the Department of Law Enforcement the summer he graduated in an internship position where he was basically passed around various positions in the department and mostly filled lunch and coffee orders. However, he did learn a lot about the inner, detailed workings of the department and it is this knowledge which really helped him to impress the important higher-ups in the Ministry. After being an intern for a year he progressed into a paid position within the Auror department, working as a researcher and techie amongst the likes of Andrew Holloway and Martin Moss. He was then seconded to the French Ministry of Magic. Whilst there, he lived in Paris and constantly found himself thrown into the company of a certain Rhys Armitage, partly due to the pushing to be friendly from their respective french parents and partly because both of them tended to gravitate towards the experimental, communist-sympathising, coffee-house-loitering scene. For James it was genuine interest in discussing music, art, literature, and philosophy, for Rhys it might have been more to do with the drugs and free love aspect but nevertheless the two boys ended up crossing paths a hell of a lot. James was also experimental in the same way as his younger brethren, dabbling in the odd affair with older women and other young men, but he was much more secretive and discreet about the whole business.
After working a 3-year stint in the French Ministry, helping them to reorganise the tech section of their own Law Enforcement department, he returned to his job as a researcher and techie within the Auror department in the British Ministry. He has since re-found his bearings and feet and has become the go-to guy for anything code-related that was puzzling the Aurors as he has brilliant lateral thinking abilities which, along with his ability to retain a hell of a lot of historical information, would have made him an excellent codebreaker had he pursued it as a career upon graduation. He is something of a Giles figure, relishing the opportunity to crack open dusty old scrolls from centuries past, but unlike the Sunnydale librarian (yes, he is a Buffy fan himself) he is not averse to technology; in fact for most of his life he has been helping to design tech which will not be affected by magical concentration and vice versa. He is one of the forerunners in this field of research and is often consulted by the Ministry on such matters.
Characteristics: Though quite secretive in himself, he is extremely twitchy and jittery when required to be so, especially if that involves lying under pressure - hence why he'd be terrible at actually in-the-field missions, not to mention his lack of stamina or physical brawn. He does play squash with colleagues after work twice weekly but that's about as much as he gets involved in sporting activities. The only thing that keeps him healthy, probably, is the fact the squash games and his penchant for walking considerable distances on weekend mornings after breakfast.
Other:
He lives by himself in a rather small, but homely, flat on the outskirts of London. His home is... basic, extremely cramped due to the amount of books and papers he has, but his house is a treasure trove, an Aladdin's cave of sorts, if you're interested in his area of research. You'd just have to avoid many stacks of precariously balanced books and find the floor through the mess and try to find James huddled somewhere clutching a book, his laptop and a cup of Earl Grey.
He speaks French as his grandfather practically raised him and could only speak fairly broken English himself. He's since also taught himself German and is proficient enough at it to get by.
He recently procured a tabby kitten named Hemingway from the litter of a friend's cat. No one is quite sure how the young, clumsy kitten manages to survive amongst the disorder that is James' office (yes, he accompanies him to work sometimes) and his flat. But he miraculously does... and garners affection from James that some of his friends and colleagues have never openly seen him bestow on a person so it's often quite startling and/or amusing to see him sat, cross-legged, on the floor of his office playing with the kitten.
He smokes like a chimney. It's a vice but he doesn't really drink alcohol regularly so he allows himself that one at least. The reason he tends to decline offered drinks is that when he does drink at a party or social occasion he likes red wine and whiskey (often one after the other in succession) and so has a habit of steadily drinking glasses upon glasses of the stuff without entirely realising it and getting steadily sozzled as the night wears on. He's very aware of this tendency of his and so tries to avoid touching a drop at all.
Oh and never, ever, take his tea away from him. Ever. Unless you want to be hexed.
