Post by Jade Pereira on Feb 24, 2014 14:42:35 GMT -5
[presto]
EIGHTEEN
MALE
ex-slytherin
PUREBLOOD
HETEROSEXUAL
SIMON NESSMAN
NIKOLAOS ANTARES YAXLEY
 all nikolaos yaxley has ever really wanted in life is to matter to someone - to know that he is wanted. this has manifested itself in his behaviour ever since his birth. there being a significant age gap between him and his two elder siblings, both of them had already grown out of the crying-infant stage by the time he was born, and since he was practically the archetype of a mischievous, tantrumy baby, it did not exactly endear him to his siblings. most of his early memories involve some sort of destruction caused by him, one (or even both sometimes) disapproving older sibling, an angry nurse and a resigned, exasperated mother. initially, nikolaos assumed that this reaction of eilona's was because she favoured him over his two siblings - after all, he had observed her being strict with duke and amara, and that was perhaps why they were both so boring, in his opinion. she didn't want him to become boring, so she wasn't being strict with him, wasn't that right? cheered by this assumption, he spent his first two years in a hazy bliss. however, this was not to last. when nikolaos was one, he overheard bits of a conversation between his mother and father - not enough to make much sense of it, but enough to deduce, from his parents' tone of voices, that something had gone horribly wrong. he puzzled over the few words he'd heard for a long time that day, before giving it up as none of his business. however, the very next day, eilona, with no great amount of joy, told her three children that they were going to have another sibling. nikolaos was delighted - he would finally have company! - but at the same time, puzzled. why didn't mother seem happy that she was having another child? and could this possibly be what he had overheard his mother and father talking about? but in what way was this bad news? when his mother failed to give him a satisfactory response to his queries, he did something he would never have done otherwise - he asked duke about it. duke, himself being only five, did not understand why this had happened, either, but he did not seem quite as bothered as nikolaos was. fast forward nine months, to astraia's birth. from the moment he first laid eyes on her, nikolaos has adored astraia more than he does anyone else. he spent almost as much time with her as their mother did - and as she grew older, even more than their mother did. he would sit by her bedside for hours together, smiling, cooing and trying to get her to do things like make sounds and roll over. nikolaos still remembers the first time astraia spoke his name - well, she didn't quite speak his name; the only part of it that came out clearly was the kol part. deciding to oblige her, nikolaos referred to himself as kol while talking to her from them on, and slowly, it became such a habit for him that he began addressing himself as kol even out of her company. eventually, everyone in the family took to calling him kol, and that has been how he introduces himself ever since. as kol grew slightly older, reaching an age where he could actually be considered self-aware, he noticed certain patterns in his parents' behaviour towards the four siblings. their treatment of amara and duke was completely different to the way they treated astraia and kol, he thought. while he did somewhat enjoy not having as many restrictions and proprieties imposed on him as his two elder siblings, he couldn't help but feel like his parents didn't actually care about him at all. he had noticed duke and amara being dragged off to this function and that all the time, while he and astraia were more often than not left to their own devices. he knew better than to question his parents, however, and kept quiet, at least until the first time one of those functions was held in their house, when he was around the age of five. lost and confused among the throng of older people, he had no idea what to do, and so ran to his mother and father in turn. his father was dragging around duke, introducing him quite proudly as the heir, and bragging about how intelligent he was, and he would surely be the best at school when he grew older. his mother, meanwhile, was with amara, showing her off to other ladies, and kol knew that he was definitely unwelcome in that circle. searching here and there, he finally found a group of other pureblood children not being shown off by their parents, and struck up a conversation with one of the boys, who he got along with quite famously. he was in the middle of relating an anecdote about his childhood, when he was suddenly called aside by his father. he was introduced to the crowd at large as 'our second son, nikolaos'. satisfied with this, he wandered back off to the boy he had been talking to, but their conversation did not quite pick up in the same way. the first thing the boy said to kol was "so you're the spare, eh?" incredulous at what he assumed was an insult, kol stormed off and refused to talk to the boy for the rest of the function. however, amara, who had watched all of this taking place out of the corner of her eye, cornered a furious kol in his room after the party was over. the two of them had never been exceptionally close - duke and amara's bond had always been very strong, so strong that kol always felt like he was intruding by even trying to get close to either of them - but this time, he was glad for her advice. while amara was not exactly patient with kol, rolling her eyes quite exaggeratedly at his angry outburst about how he was not just a spare and he was important and he really hated that stupid boy, she still gave him one of his most important life lessons to date. finally, kol realised that in the grand scheme of things, he was not that important to his parents. in fact, he had never been, and would never be, as important as duke, and nor would astraia be as important as amara. the only reason he would ever really be relevant was if duke ever failed, and why would perfect duke, his parents' pride and joy, ever fail? slowly, everything was falling into place - his mother's relative ignorance of him and astraia, her lack of strictness with them. it wasn't because she liked them more, as he had so naïvely believed for the first five years of his life - it was because she just simply didn't care as much. kol moped for days, before deciding that he had to take matters into his own hands. so what if he was the spare to his parents? he sure as hell did not need to be the spare with the rest of the world. building on his natural charm and ability to socialise, he began to interact more and more with the other pureblood children of his age whenever he went to similar functions. slowly, he became so charming and talkative, almost every pureblood child there at the party would flock to him. at first, kol was only really interested in that for the purposes of defiance - as if to tell his parents 'see? i matter to other people. more than i do to you, even.' but he quickly began to genuinely enjoy being around people, and became known for his warm nature. however, the more friends he made, the closer he got to astraia. according to kol, astraia has it even worse off then him. while he was conceived with a purpose, albeit one that would probably never need to be served, astraia was never even planned. (he did not learn this until he was eleven, and quite ironically, he heard it from astraia herself. he did not believe her at first, threatening to beat up whoever had said that about her, but as he remembered the conversation he had overheard that night so many years ago, he managed to piece together everything.) while he has managed to make himself loved, wanted, desirable even, astra has always been on the sidelines, preferring to stay aloof. however, kol knows that she is equally as affected by her place in the family as he is by his, and so he has resolved to make her feel like she matters, always. and to him, she does. just like duke and amara are the most important things in each other's lives, astraia and kol are the same to each other. kol has always had many friends - it is not at all difficult for him to gain friends, what with his nature - but astraia has always been and always will be his best friend. after all, someone has to convince her that she matters to them. and so, despite the two-year age gap, astraia and kol have always been very, very close, and kol does not see that changing in the foreseeable future. --- kol's best memory has always been the moment he boarded the hogwarts express for the first time. despite the lack of astra, it was the first time he ever actually felt like he could be someone beyond the yaxley heir apparent. he was ready to carve out a new identity for himself, away from the four walls of his home. yes, duke and amara were still at school, and he would be known as their younger brother, but here, there were no parents around to place conditions on him, or to order him as to what to do. here, he was free to do whatever he wished. despite the best efforts of his parents to sedate him, he has always been warm, loud, boisterous, the most outgoing of the yaxley siblings. really, it took the hat quite a long time to sort him. it said a lot to him that day - the most important of those things being that neither duke nor amara had taken this long to sort. in fact, it continued, kol was turning up a positively shocking result - it appeared that gryffindor seemed to fit him best. kol had nothing particularly against gryffindors, but he knew that if he was placed there, he would be separated from all his siblings. yes, even astraia, who wasn't actually at hogwarts yet, because there was no doubt as to where she would fit best. defeated, the hat agreed to place him in slytherin, because after all, it wasn't like he was a complete misfit for that house, was he? kol has never related this incident to anyone in his family - well, except astra. he tells astra everything. when he told her, she simply laughed and said, "i knew it, kol. you're such a gryffindor." such a gryffindor? kol was not exactly sure if astra meant that as an insult, but he preferred to take it as a compliment. unlike duke, kol was not excellent at school, but he did fairly well. his strengths had always lain more in his people skills than his academic ones. his marks were decent - nothing that would particularly make his parents feel proud, nor would they shame them. he never made the quidditch team either - he played for fun, sure, but was never quite able to hone his skills enough to make the team. however, he was still one of the most popular boys in his year, all through his hogwarts life. at first, this popularity baffled him slightly, but he quickly got used to it. he gained a large circle of friends fast, and he loved being around people. he's not the kind of person that socialises and appears happy, but is really sad inside - he genuinely is as happy as he appears. that's one thing about kol that is not very slytherin; he has never known how to mask his true feelings. astra, on the other hand, is a slytherin through and through. she is cool, confident, and quiet; she never seems to need any company besides kol's. despite the fact that kol loves astra dearly, somehow, he has always felt the need for other company around him, people who admire him, people who he's had an impact on. his next best friend, after astraia, is nikolai hartley, a gryffindor who was in his year at school. the two did not really know each other for their first two years at hogwarts, but one day, in his third year, nikolai came up to him and struck up a conversation out of nowhere. apparently, cassandra lewis had told nikolai that since he had almost the same first name as kol, the two of them had to make friends immediately. had kol not been - well, kol, he might have rolled his eyes at nikolai and laughed at the assumption. but, he figured, a shared first name was as good a reason to become friends as any, and so the two became friends, and later even best friends. they've been through a lot together - in fact, kol is one of the few people who knows who nikolai is in love with, and while he may tease him endlessly about it, he honestly just wants nik to be happy at the end of the day. the two of them appear to be unlikely best friends, considering nik was a gryffindor and kol a slytherin, but if you look closer, they are undeniably very similar, considering their general chilled-out nature and sociableness. the two of them have just moved into a flat together, and they're both currently in the process of deciding exactly what they want to do with their lives. --- kol has never really been in love. it's not a big secret, but sometimes, it feels like he's missing out on something. all through his school years, people of both genders would flock to him like moths to light, and he enjoyed that. however, somewhere around his fourth year, he began to hear himself being talked about a great deal. girls would whisper and giggle when he passed by, they would follow him around sometimes, some even actually came and told him that they liked him. most of the time, he'd laugh it off - not unkindly, though, just amusedly - and go on with his life. but eventually, he, too, began to notice the opposite gender. honestly, he's never been one to go out, actively looking to flirt or hook-up with someone; most of the time, when these things happen to him, they just happen, without any planning beforehand or worry as to what will happen afterwards. from his fourth year onward, he has been quite frequent at parties, as well, and at one of these parties, he had his first kiss, and first.. well, everything, really. the girl was someone he knew and liked, but was never too close to to say that they had ruined anything by sleeping together. since then, he's had a few flings on and off, though he's never really felt very serious feelings towards anyone... well, at least, not until the very end of his seventh year. while he can't say what suddenly sparked his feelings towards this girl - he had, after all, known her since first year - the fact remained that he had suddenly started seeing her in a different light than he had been used to. it was a weird sensation, indeed - he began to notice all sorts of little things about her that he never had before; stupid, cliche things like how her eyes were just the loveliest shade of green or the sound of her laugh or the way her hair looked when she left it open. thankfully, it hadn't grown to such an extent that it affected his personal or academic life; it was simply like a very annoying thorn in his side. a pretty thorn, yes, but still annoying. this was one time that kol really regretted his inability to hide his true feelings - he simply could not face her without becoming flustered, or staring at her in a way that nikolai had deemed incredibly creepy. so, he tried his best to avoid her while being discreet about the fact that he was avoiding her, and him being himself, this was incredibly hard. to tell the truth, kol was actually glad to be away from her once he left hogwarts - while his feelings have not waned one bit, and he doesn't know how he'll react if he ever happens to run into her again, for now, he's just glad not to have to face her every day. --- the biggest problem with kol is that he's never really had an idea of what he wants out of his life. sure, he wants to be wanted and loved, and he's managed to make himself desirable. but he knows that's not all it takes to get far in life. both his elder siblings seem to have it all sorted so well; duke managing his stores, and amara set in her ambitions to become the minister one day. astra can be excused for not having a clear idea yet; she's only sixteen. but kol? he's graduated, and yet he's completely clueless. he got good enough newt marks to work at the ministry if he wants; however, he's not quite sure if that is what he wants. communication has always been kol's forte; he's charming and convincing and could probably make you believe the most outlandish lies if he tried. astra once suggested to him that he work in advertisements - it wouldn't be much work for him, after all, since he was such a smooth talker. laughing, kol had brushed astra off, but sometimes, on his worst days, he actually begins to think there's merit in astra's suggestion. he looks around at the other people who graduated at the same time as him, and marvels at how put-together their lives all seem now - even those who he didn't think would manage to sort their lives out. he rather fancies working as an ambassador of some sort, and is trying to find an opening at the ministry. until he does? well, he's still living life to the best of his abilities. KITTY FIFTEEN GMT+4 |
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