Post by Valentin Hartley on Feb 23, 2014 11:38:00 GMT -5
[presto]
SIXTEEN
MALE
RAVENCLAW
HALFBLOOD
HETEROSEXUAL
MAX SCHNEIDER
VALENTIN ADRIAN HARTLEY
 valentin hartley is just your average bloke, really, although he'd be pretty outraged if he heard me say that. you see, valentin likes to think of himself as an exceptional sports boy – ahem, man – but truth be told, he really just is an average person. he does passably in his studies (although he detests history of magic, sorry dad, but he still keeps it going because like i said, he passes it enough), taking care of magical creatures and muggle studies (an easy enough albeit rather uninteresting subject to pass for him, so he keeps it) since his third year. his favourite subject would have to be care of magical creatures because that's out on the grounds and looking after animals and not so much of essays, that sort of thing. valentin is not shy about admitting that academics are not really his strongest point. he'd much rather be out and about all day than slaving away inside at his essays, whether or not the weather outside is good. he's just that type of person who needs to keep moving to be happy. it was a real riot in his childhood. his older brother nikolai (yes yes enough about the names, he's heard about it a fair number of times) was also a bit active when he was younger, but his energy was directed at different things. while nikolai liked singing and dancing and pretending everything was one huge musical (valentin's kidding... or is he? you decide), valentin liked doing the whole running around, hitting things thing. he knew he was destined for something big when his first sign of accidental magic was when he was kicking a football around and he'd aimed at a goal like he'd seen other football players do and it had soared straight in like no seven-year-old's business. since then, he made a habit of kicking things or shooting crumpled pieces of paper from their dad's desk into the bin, widening the distance every time he got a goal. (sometimes he'd also aim at his family members' heads, but you didn't read that here.) he wasn't even a teenager yet, but he'd found his niche without even looking for it. that's pretty much valentin for you. when he got into hogwarts, he got sorted into ravenclaw in under five seconds, which didn't make sense at that time, but there you go. he really detested studying and he could hardly sit still in class (needless to say, he kept his classes from ever getting boring. the best stunt he pulled when he was younger was when he brought a snitch to class and let it loose). he hated writing down notes, what to speak of writing essays, and his attention span would wander around like a drunk fly. his first year was a real struggle for him as he refused to knuckle down to the idea of actually having to study. it didn't help that his older brother nikolai, a third year at that time, seemed to be just as carefree about studying as valentin himself was. he passed most of his core subjects by the skin of his teeth – except history of magic, he just couldn't put in the effort for that, despite how much he wanted to make his dad proud, like he'd been when nikolai passed that subject every year. the one subject valentin had really, really passed that year and enjoyed it was flying. it was the one subject he'd been looking forward to the absolute most, ever since he was a young child hearing about harry potter making his house team in his first year. of course, he wasn't as lucky as the chosen one, but valentin liked to think of himself being pretty damn good at flying, thank you. i mean, okay, so maybe he made the house team in his second year. yes yes, that's pretty impressive still and all that, but his second year academics was hardly better than his first year. nikolai seemed to be struggling with school work, too, and jaime, good old helpful older brother jaime, had left hogwarts. if valentin hadn't made the team, his entire year would have gone down the drain, although he refuses to acknowledge just how close he'd been to failing just about everything. as it was, playing on the team helped with his concentration somehow, instead of taking away from it. he applied his quidditch strategy on his homework, thinking of the teacher as the opponent (hypothetically) and having to beat them by his play on words. he wasn't the most eloquent of boys, having preferred to run around and kick balls and all that when he was younger – he didn't even have the way with words nikolai had, which he'd gotten from listening to sappy love songs and poems and all that – so writing was a hard skill for valentin to learn. it took many failed attempts, scrunched up parchment, broken quills, ink in every place imaginable, and the long-suffering patience of his ravenclaw friends before he could get a good essay handed in. thankfully, his friends in his house helped a lot, which was an advantage for him. he was forced to study, show house pride and all that, and he treated it as an equivalent to a quidditch match won whenever he finished yet another essay. the good thing about this was that valentin wasn't the type of person to kick back and relax once he'd won. he used his success to bounce higher, aiming for more. whenever he was high from winning, he'd use that to think up more plays, idealise more strategies. if he passed an essay, his flying became faster and better. he could throw a quaffle further and better. everything was fine and dandy and the colours shone brightly. of course, that was after an essay. during the essay writing time itself, it wasn't abnormal to hear him muttering crazily to himself, his hands making skid marks in his messy, curly hair and looking like a demented cat, really. exam time was different. the night before exams would be the same as the night before quidditch games – he'd be trying to live up as much as he could without running himself ragged. it was his way of coping with all the stress and nerves. the night before his very first exam, he'd giggled in a very high-pitched and rather undignified way for about three hours before one of the older ravenclaws had given him a good smack upside his head in sheer irritation (that older ravenclaw had been the headmistress' nephew, so valentin had decided to heed his warning). the next nights, he'd figured out different ways to de-stress: chase a snitch around the common room, dunk crumpled pieces of parchment, playing gobstones, flicking muggle marbles against each other in a very mini game of bowls, and doing push-ups or any other kind of exercise. it helped tire him out to get him a good, early night's sleep, leaving him refreshed and ready for his exams. he'd carried on this routine until this very day. the end of his third year coincided with nikolai's rather disastrous owl results. valentin didn't know how to deal with the quiet household because nikolai wasn't playing music in the living room and jaime was hardly around and mum and dad were off in angry and disappointed tiffs, respectively. so he did what he could to deal with that time – he went out every day to get away from it all a bit, and spent all his energy doing what he loved best. sports was the way he dealt with pretty much everything. playing beater helped relieve any anger or tension, chasing quaffles made him feel free, reckless, and competitive, while seeking put his mind at ease by forgetting everything else to concentrate on finding the most elusive ball of the game. he still ran by his old haunts when he was younger: football and rugby at muggle clubs, swimming at the local pool, running, jogging, cycling. he enjoyed them too, finding the sheer hard work of having no magical protection or influence rather invigorating. in football you had to be fast by the use of your very own two feet, in rugby you had to be able to tackle down a monster of a man without the use of bludgers. everything had to be done by your own body with no outside help, and valentin found it just as stress-relieving and free-feeling as quidditch. their different houses gave nikolai and valentin more distance than it should have. maybe if nikolai had seen his younger brother every day in the common room and realized that he needed to be a role model, he'd have worked harder at his studies. maybe if valentin had seen nikolai's steady disregard for academics, he'd have encouraged his older brother to pull his act together – or, alternatively, it could have dragged him down, too. as it was, valentin didn't know how to deal with nikolai. they'd grown, separate from each other, and their different inclinations and ways of dealing with things didn't help any. so while nikolai locked himself up in his room, valentin was out – it'd always been that way, but that year made it clear how very different the brothers were and, more importantly, how distant they'd gotten. his fourth year was much the same as the previous year, except for nikolai finally decided to not care about school at all and that really impacted valentin. it drove him crazy with worry because he didn't know what to do – he wasn't the older brother. he also didn't know what the hell was going on with nikolai. they talked the least times during that year than any other point in their lives. it worried valentin to the point where he dropped the chaser position in favour of the seeker position. he needed the absolute concentration and the focus of the position, the one-track mentality of the seeker. the chaser may have a lot more on their mind and therefore a lot more concentration was needed because there were many factors to their play and they had a strategy to follow, but valentin felt the seeker's crucial moves meant that he had to be perfect, and at that time, valentin strove to be perfect in that aspect to get away from the other points that he couldn't help to become perfect: his brother. he felt helpless in one situation so he pushed himself to become the best in another. his grades suffered a little in the turn of his concentration, but his ravenclaw friends would never let him slack off, so pass he did. it was during that year that he made an amazing discovery: there were girls in the school. girls who smiled at him in the corridors, girls who cheered his name during the game, girls who subtly placed their soft, delicate fingers on his arms and laughed at his jokes. good merlin, where had he been the last couple of years that he'd not noticed them? it seemed like overnight, he'd finally realized exactly how much attention he garnered from the female community (actually, he became enlightened after a ravenclaw-gryffindor game where he helped his team win 390-50 by pulling a couple of stunts and a weak imitation (don't tell him i said that) of the wronski feint). he had his first snog by the lockers after a scrape-through win after a classmate of his decided to 'cheer him up'. they were caught by the caretaker and he was given detention, his first of many for that reason. he'd had detentions before, especially during his first year but his keeping a steady amount of pranks played, inability to focus in class, late essays, and being out after hours regularly kept his detentions coming in. not as many as his brother served, but a fair enough amount that his teachers called him by his first name and his friends wouldn't be surprised if he breezed into the common room with yet another detention under his belt. when fifth year arrived with no improvement in nikolai's attitude, valentin decided that as it was his owl year and nikolai's newt year, they needed the extra help. after christmas, he'd owled jaime to beg him to come in and talk to nikolai. true to his word and being the older brother that he was (and also because their parents had asked him to intervene too), jaime came down to hogsmeade to whip nikolai into shape. thankfully, nikolai took his advice to heart and tried to improve. valentin breathed a sigh of relief and tried to help him, too, although he couldn't do that much because nikolai didn't get valentin's coping methods and valentin didn't understand nikolai' coursework. they bonded a little over their shared episodes in the library, which they both called brother-bonding time and no one else was allowed to join their table. surprisingly, those times helped both valentin and nikolai, and soon the older brother was helping the younger brother with his coursework, something which pleased valentin a lot because he felt that he and his brother were becoming closer. not that they'd ever been completely distant, or that there was any bad feelings between them – it'd been simply that they were in different houses and had different personalities. they were still brothers and very good friends, and that year proved to be amongst the best in valentin's life. now, valentin is shaping up for his sixth year and has his fingers crossed to get ravenclaw team captain. he's thinking of moving back to being chaser or possibly trying out beater, because his marks hadn't been the best while he'd been too busy focusing on being seeker. he's figured out that he wants to join a professional quidditch team, possibly the montrose magpies or tutshill tornadoes or his absolute dream of a national team. he also realizes that because quidditch positions are few and demand only the best, competition is difficult, so he's set up a bit of a plan b: working in the ministry for the department of magical games and sports (but that's a very last plan b; he'd much rather try to bring up a team from the bottom of the league than work out papers in the ministry). he's had a few kisses and no shags, but he basks in the attention of the female community and he loves flirting and snogging. this will be his first year as the only hartley in the school, and he's not quite sure how to deal with it. only time will tell. you see, knowledge doesn't mean just academics. his knowledge on the quidditch pitch and his knack for playing his opponents and strategising and all that shows that he's earned his place in ravenclaw house. he's got a brilliant mind and a brilliant smile and a rather sunny disposition. accompanying his smile is his rather messy hair, the most common trademark amongst quidditch players. seriously, what is there not to love about valentin? he's happy as long as he's out and about and has a place to run and kick and hit and scream and shout and let it all out (that last three was just a joke, but you know what i mean). oh, and he also absolutely detests being called 'val', because that's a girl nickname. he's also heard lentin, which is a bit crap because it sounds like lentils and if he's lentils then his brother is kola and its just too much for his ego, you know. he also dislikes any joke regarding st valentine's day (he has many repressed childhood nightmares about this particular day) and will be liable to send a bludger your way if you decide to call him st valentines. so if you're wondering exactly what to call him if 'valentin' is too long for you, here it is. if you're not a good friend of his, you'll just have to suck it up and deal and call him by his full name. if you're a good friend of his, he'll let you pass with a 'tino', although there isn't actually an o after the n, or maybe even possibly 'vans', if he's feeling particularly charitable. 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