- Date of birth: November 14th
- Nationality: Welsh
- Residence: Conwy, Wales
- Blood status: Half blood
- Year: First year
- Origin: Dhampir
- Aptitudes:
- Physique - 7
- Intelligence - 7
- Charisma - 7
- Spirit - 5
- Agility - 7
- Sorcery - 3
- House: Dranaga
- Other accounts: June Selwyn, Rhiannon Pryce (staff)
Physical Description
Devon Fondatore, or Devi as most call him, is a slim, wiry first-year who always looks a little restless. His hair is thick, dark brown, and impossible to tame; it falls into his face no matter how often he tries to brush it back. His complexion is almost unusually pale, something his grandmother explains away as “autoimmune issues”, but is truly the result of that fateful night in Diagon Alley.
The most striking thing about him are his eyes: now a disconcerting red from the dhampir transformation. To hide them, he wears brown contact lenses that dull his vision and cast the world into sepia tones.
His school uniform is never quite neat, tie loose, shirt half-tucked, and his schoolbag is scuffed and messy, often weighed down with sketchbooks.
Personality Description
Devi is a boy who would rather observe than be observed. He has the kind of mind that can’t help but notice details others overlook, from the angle of a roof beam to the way a person doesn’t quite belong in their group of friends.
Independent to the point of stubbornness, he avoids asking for help, preferring to solve things himself even when it makes life harder. Despite this, he isn’t antisocial; he craves connection but shies away at the last second, worried that if people look too closely, they’ll see the parts of him that don’t fit.
He used to be an energetic boy, fascinated with science and architecture and how the world works. Creativity runs through him, almost compulsively, and he fills sketchbooks with blueprints, drawings, and half-finished designs that he rarely shows anyone. Over time, though, he became embarrassed of these hobbies and passions, and stopped showing public interest in them. The idea of people seeing through the harder exterior he puts up and seeing an artist is almost embarrassing enough to kill him.
He’s intelligent enough to scrape together passing grades in school without trying. Though he was often one of the top in his math and science classes, he never particularly cared for school.
Devi doesn’t have many friends, though most people know who he is. They all assume that he has a large group of friends, and so few have made an attempt to start a real friendship with him. Devi doesn’t mind, though, he doesn’t really want good friends. He’s afraid that they would want to come over and see his room, which was currently covered in sketches and blueprints.
Backstory
Devi comes from a line of pureblood wizards on his father Nathan’s side. His mother, Pauline, a muggle, died in labour. Devi doesn’t know much about her, and he doesn’t really care to find out, at least for now. He has, however, taken her last name, Fondatore.
They say your 20s are for spiting your parents when you never quite saw eye to eye in your childhood. And, for a time, Nathan did just that. Tired of the strict upbringing he was given in pureblood society, once he graduated Hogwarts, he ignored all social protocol and enjoyed a life of travel and parties. It was in this context that he met Pauline, striking up a conversation with her when he first saw her at the Leaky Cauldron. He saw her quite a few times there, always buying her a drink and enjoying conversation. It was only after a few of these conversations that he learned she was a muggle, only in the Leaky Cauldron because of her brother who was magic and frequented the pub himself. While the discovery made him uneasy.. she certainly was beautiful. Charming and witty at that, too. Pushing down those feelings, the two often met at the Leaky Cauldron to meet and chat, until one night where both had consumed a bit too much to drink, and took a room for the night. Did he love her? She died too early to really know, but he was certainly infatuated with her. Perhaps the lack of love is what made him realize, after a time of raising his bastard son alone, that he missed his family. His pureblooded family were proud supremacists, and in their eyes, mixing with a muggle was an act of treason to his kind, and to have a child without being married another atrocity of its own kind. He was now barred from seeing his siblings, his nieces and nephews, and he realized how alone he truly felt.
When Devi was 5 years old, his father was finally overcome with the shame he considered his son. Devon was a reminder of what he now considered his greatest failure, partnering with a muggle and bringing a half-blood into the world. Nathan sat his son down, plainly explaining why he was leaving. Well, it was more Devi who was leaving, moving out of his father's manor and into his maternal grandmother's cottage. Devi wasn’t bothered or confused, it made perfect sense at the time. But over time, Devi has become more.. Not angry, but upset. Bitter, perhaps. He does get a birthday card with some cash every year, though.
Since then, Devi has lived with his grandmother Marion in Conwy, Wales. Marion can’t stand Devi's father, almost to an unhealthy degree. She blames him for the death of her daughter, going off on angry tangents any time he’s brought up in conversation or sends a card. Marion obsesses over comparing Devi to his mother. His hair, his manner of speaking, she would usually ramble on and on about how much he reminds her of her daughter. His grandmother, like his mother, is purely human. She tries her best to connect with her grandson, but he doesn’t really reciprocate her feelings. He’s grateful for her, he likes her, but he doesn’t love her. Marion never shunned Devi for his magical abilities once they showed, she wants to encourage him in every aspect of his life. But she never liked the fact that he was magical, a permanent reminder of his father.
The Turning
Diagon Alley was supposed to be fun. Preparing for a new school, new opportunities, new adventures. His uncle-in-law, a muggle-born wizard now living in London, had invited Devon and Marion to stay with him for a couple of weeks to prepare for school help make sense of this new world. Devon had only been slightly exposed to the world of magic, what with having spent a few summers with his father in his younger years. He had his own bouts of magic that began a few months prior, a single moving photograph of his mother, and the attestation of Marion that magic was real, yet it still felt like a dream. Unreal. Scary, even. He didn’t know the half of it yet.
Diagon Alley was supposed to be fun. And it certainly was at the start. The not-quite London (or was it still London? The Fondatore family certainly would not know) sky was decorated by the colours of a summer sunset, Devi had received his first ever chocolate frog, and was simply wandering from display to display, ignoring Marion’s calls to slow down and stay by her side. “We don’t really know much about this place,” she’d remind him. “Better safe than sorry.” A lesson he’d have to learn the hard way.
Diagon Alley was supposed to be fun. And it was, until the sky went from pastel pinks and yellows to profound blues and purples, and flames began to spark to life in the lanterns lining the street. And then, it wasn’t so fun anymore.
If Devi had been attentive, he’d have realized there was a figure trailing him. If Devi had been careful, he wouldn’t have poked down a side alley for “just a moment” to look at the flying buttresses by himself. If Devi was smart, he wouldn’t have died.
Diagon Alley was supposed to be fun.
The capture was quick, practiced, with deadly precision. A casting of the full-body bind curse found Devon unable to move as he found his body being hoisted into a stranger’s arms as the figure quickly made its way into Knockturn Alley, finding a quiet and empty corner of the seedy area to squirrel away in. It was in the jostling of Devon’s body in this paralyzed state that he saw blood on the face and hands of his captor. Unknown to him at the time, it spelled disaster for the young boy. It was a dhampir.
The dhampir was desperate, that much was certain. What exactly for was unknown, as many of the events of that evening were for Devon. He doesn’t remember how exactly he was turned, what the process was like, or any one moment of transformation. It was a blur of adrenaline, then the absolute certainty he was going to die. He stood on what he could only explain as a tall white column, watching as what seemed to be the fabrication of his very self rot away. And then, he was no longer on the column, he was sprawled out on the cobblestone street, two teeth lying next to his face.
He remembers a sense of purpose instilled within him as his eyes landed on the figure, not yet alert enough to make out the details.
The events after that are a blur. Red sparks. Yelling, lots of yelling. A scream that sounded like it belonged to Marion. The sense of loss as the figure disappeared from sight. A strange looking hospital, his uncle explaining something very serious to Marion. It was in the days after that Devon had explained to him the details of what had occurred that night. What had been done to him. What he was.
Many questions were left unanswered about the happenings of that night, but those questions would need to be laid to the side as Devon was faced with a new reality. The Fondatore family did not have the luxury of “why” or “how” at a time like this.
Marion, perhaps in a fit of denial or perhaps in a ploy to allow Devon as normal of a life as he could, became very solution-oriented towards many of Devi’s new changes. Missing teeth, and eventually fangs? She ordered a flipper for him to give the appearance of a full set of pearly whites, convincing on a passing glance. Red eyes? Coloured contacts would shortly arrive in the mail, and new ones would come by owl in a timely manner every month once Devi was at Penwick. There was not much that could be done for his complexion, but could be explained away by placing the blame on an “autoimmune disease” and praying no one investigated further.
Yes, Devon Fondatore looked like a normal human once more. Pale and tired looking, but normal. And yet something fundamentally had changed within Devon that night. He did not understand why he felt he was missing a small part of himself since being separated from whomever turned him, the fleeting sense of purpose he felt that night.
A brain not developed enough to process such trauma will simply pack it away for the time being.
So, when asked how his first experience in the wizarding world went by teachers and peers alike, Devon had a very practiced answer. Diagon Alley was fun.
First Instance of Accidental Magic
Only a few months before starting Penwick, already 11 years old, Devon finally showed his first sign of magic. As Marian arranged flowers in the kitchen asking Devon about school, he drummed his fingers agaisnt the dining room table, bored out of his mind and wanting to leave to play video games in his room. And then, without warning, every vase in the room (which was a lot, Marion has a thing for flowers) toppled in his direction, the floor now covered in water and scattered flowers. Marion did her best to put on a fake smile, to get Devi excited. He was a wizard, amazing! But they both knew it was a ruse.