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General Information
Character Name:
Cai Gwydion Blackwood
Age:
11
Date of Birth:
16/08/1912
Blood Status:
Halfblood
Residence:
With Wesley, Catrin, Gareth and Elowen Blackwood
Family:
Rupert Blackwood (grandfather) & Emery Blackwood (grandmother)
Wesley Blackwood (father) & Catrin ?? (Mother)
Gareth Blackwood (brother)
Elowen Blackwood (sister)
Cai Gwydion Blackwood, yours truly.
Gideon Blackwood (uncle) & Roisin Byrne (aunt, married-in). Aunt Elizabeth died in 1917.
Fiona Blackwood (cousin)
Theodore Blackwood (baby cousin)
Archer Blackwood (uncle)
Hayes Blackwood (uncle)
Lavinia Blackwood (aunt)
Personality & House Preference
- On the upside: Cheeky, independent-minded, charismatic, witty, defiant.
- On the reverse: Reckless, attention-seeking, unrepentant, provocative, impulsive.
It went like this.
Cai put a rock in his slingshot and set an acorn down on the table outside. There was a window behind the table, but he was sure he wouldn't miss it. He'd been practising his aim the whole day while Mam was trying to cope with Elowen's hissy fit and Gareth was being dull, reading out in the yard. Dad was away, which was why the slingshot had come out in the first place. Dad had no confidence in him at all. "Cai," he'd say, "put that away. You'll hurt yourself." Hurt himself? Hurt himself? That was just insulting, that was. A slingshot only fires the one way, so how could he possibly hurt himself?
Mam had heaps of confidence in him. Mam said things like "Yes love," and "of course love," without really looking. Today she'd said, "go and play outside, love," before she'd messed up his hair. Everyone always messed up his hair.
He took a few steps back and considered aiming at Gareth instead but thought better of it. Elowen was more fun to set off anyway, only she'd gone and set herself off already, judging by the screeching between her and Mam. If they kept going like this, the two of them were far more likely to break that window than he was.
The smooth pebble he'd found sat perfect in the pouch. He'd picked it out special. He squeezed his tongue between his lips and took aim.
Aim small, miss small, that's what they say.
THWACK!
A smashing hit, even though he'd missed!
You should have heard the sound of the glass going into a thousand tiny pieces. Glorious, it was. It'd stopped Mam and his sister fighting, too. Oh, now they noticed him. Mam's head snapped round and her eyes went to slits. Cai's face went slack, mouth agape, pretty blue eyes slightly wide - the picture of innocence. It usually worked...
"Caiden. Gwydion. Blackwood! To your room, now!"
For an hour he'd been stuck in his room, bored to tears, and they wouldn't let him out till supper. Dad wasn't going to be pleased. Cai had thought about tying the bedsheets together and going out the window and down to the coast, and then he'd swim the channel and go to France and survive on cheese. They probably wouldn't understand him, mind. There weren't very many people who could speak Welsh.
Anyway. He'd decided not to go to France today. He was hungry, and supper wouldn't be long, and next week they were off to Diagon Alley and he'd have his own wand, and he didn't reckon he could make it all the way back from France in a week, even being a very good swimmer.
History:
Aye, he was born this handsome, thanks for asking. August the 16th, 1912, to be exact. His real name was Caiden Gwydion Blackwood, but everyone just called him Cai, as though no one could be bothered with all of him. "Caiden, please stop poking your sister," just hadn't got the same ring to it as simply "Cai!" and a thwack on the back of the head.
His mam was called Catrin and his dad Wesley, and it was them and Gareth and Elowen he lived with. They all lived together in a shop and his room was up in the attic. Downstairs they sold fancy men's clothes to esteemed people and haughty children, but sometimes his dad's friends came over to help out in the basement, sorting stock. His dad's many friends were nicer than his dad's customers, mind, but they all had that annoying habit of messing up his hair. He must have had a sign on him somewhere saying "please ruffle", because everyone did it without asking. He'd have been a very rich boy by now if he'd thought to charge for it.
His older siblings Gareth and Elowen were twins, and they were nothing alike, but Mam and Dad liked the pair of them better than him regardless. He'd known that since he was about six, because he kept getting Gareth's hand-me-downs. Better than getting Elowen's hand-me-downs, he supposed, her being a girl and him not being caught dead in girl's clothes. No good, they were, and Gareth's fitted him fine. He'd just like something of his own someday, that's all.
One day Mam told him about when he got born and how it was a surprise to her, finding out she had him. Well. That settles it, doesn't it? They were trying to be nice about it, but really he was just an accident. Which was strange, because he knew how babies were made and it seemed very hard to do that by accident, even though his parents were wizards. Maybe he was a mutant, the result of some witches' brew. Cai thought it'd be fantastic if he was and it'd explain his wicked ways that no vicar had managed to beat out of him yet.
When he turned ten he was fairly sure they were going to sit him down and tell him he was adopted. He'd worked most of it out already in his diary, see. He was actually Robinson Crusoe's secret son, only Crusoe had to put him in a basket when he was little because the island was being attacked by indians. So he was from a remote island, really, and only adopted for the time being. That's why he'd climbed the roof to their house once, not because he'd been bored and starved of attention, but because he had wild blood pumping through his veins and Robinson Crusoe was going to pick him up in the hot-air balloon he'd been building, and they'd fly off back to the island where he belonged, and they'd hunt their own food and make campfires and have a jolly time.
He told Elowen all of this and she said it was a good story, which at the time he took to mean she thought it was true as well. Picture his disappointment when all he got for his tenth birthday was a toy broom with a weak charm on it that fizzled out after a month or so.
According to Mam, Elowen used to carry him round everywhere when he was little and was very fond of him. They used to play and laugh a lot, and he remembered being terribly upset when she first went off to Hogwarts and he had to stop home. She was still nice to him sometimes, but she'd gone very serious of late and had taught him all the synonyms for idiot in the dictionary, by virtue of calling him each of them at least the once.
These days he got on better with Gareth who was a bit dull, but very sweet with it, and never afraid of giving him a cwtch when he needed one. Elowen said he was too big for cwtches. She was probably the only person alive who thought him too big for anything. Dad said he was even smaller than Gareth had been at his age and then Cai had spent a few weeks spinning tales that he was the cursed child of a burrowing gnome family with terrible magical powers. In truth he'd gotten rather worried he might get stood on or sat on when he went to Hogwarts, but Gareth kept telling him he'd be fine and he wasn't that little. Mam said he'd grow if he ate more spinach, which is leafy and disgusting, but he'd been slogging through heaps of the stuf ever since. Gareth had said they'd have spinach at Hogwarts too, which was a relief.
He was very keen on going to Hogwarts. Uncle Gideon was the deputy headmaster, so he could tell people off if anyone called him little. Or he could just run away, being very, very fast. He'd been doing track since he was nine and he was good at athletics besides. He could do a running wall backflip, for example, or even just a standing backflip, and he could do far more cartwheels than Elowen, which annoyed her something rotten. He liked swimming and riding too, so if it turned out he was a rubbish wizard, well, he could always be an athlete instead.
Uncle Gideon had been telling him more about Quidditch. He'd got him a better practice broom for his eleventh birthday, which had been driving Mam and Dad mad. He'd been evicted from the back yard, the pair of them convinced he'd smash into a window. Apart from their stinging lack of confidence, having to practise on the field just outside town had been a blessing. They'd have confiscated the broom and grounded him for a month if they ever knew he was doing loop-the-loops and corkscrews out there, but since he hadn't broken any bones yet, they'd never know, would they?
He'd practised all summer and he'd be trying out for the team as soon as ever he could. He'd make a good chaser, he reckoned, or a seeker, maybe a keeper. Probably not a beater, for the same reason he wasn't doing rugby: the spinach hadn't started working yet. He'd have to ask Uncle Gideon if he knew of a growing potion.
Fiona, his cousin, would be going to Hogwarts at the same time. He'd have to ask her how many cartwheels she could do.
House Preference:
Gryffindor
Year Preference:
First
Prompt Response:
The professor’s cane made a brilliant whooshing sound as it cut through the air. “What’s this?” she demanded to know.
We were all stood in a drafty corridor near one of the inner courtyards. Nobody said anything. “No one?” asked the Professor. One of the confusing things about adults is that sometimes when they ask you a question, they don’t actually want you to answer. Everyone stayed silent and nothing happened. Then, for a while, nothing continued to happen.
The professor tapped the cane against the wall. “Who painted this?”
The pointy end of the stick rested on a colourful mural, haphazardly painted, somewhat resembling the Professor if she’d been made out of wax and partially melted down. Helpfully, the creator had written her name next to it to prevent any misidentification. Underneath it was written: “The hag of Hogwarts”, which eliminated about half the class for the simple reason that there wasn’t a girl in first year with sufficiently poor penmanship.
The cane made that whooshing sound again as it came off the wall. Now the pointy bit was threatening the assembly. “Haven’t you got anything to say? Either I will have an answer or we’ll all freeze out here. Your choice. What about you Mr. Chatsworth? Or you Ferntumble? Wipe that stupid grin off your face Tompsett!”
The professor looked like she was about to skewer him, which would have been impressive. Tompsett was a barrel of a boy and you had to seriously wonder if her cane could make it all the way through him and out the other end.
Owen Chomley stood up very straight, his hands folded behind his back, stained with black and blue paint. Cai had noticed from the start that Owen had been unusually quiet. Soon enough the Professor’s murderous glare would land on him, and then he would surely crack. Already, Cai could see the dimples on Owen’s cheeks from how hard he was biting down on them, trying to keep a straight face.
The math was simple. Chomley had been in trouble before, it would only be a matter of time before the Professor got ‘round to grilling him and put him in his tenth detention. Maybe he’d finally get expelled. He might like that actually, to be the first student in history to be expelled over bad artwork, but that wasn’t allowed to happen. Chomley was a chummy friend. And what good were friends if they didn’t stand up for you?
“I did it,” Cai said suddenly. The Professor’s head snapped toward him, and for one glorious moment Cai felt like Moses as the sea of students in the rows before him parted with a gasp. Uncle Gideon wouldn’t be happy to see him in his office, but he didn’t have the threat of expulsion looming over him.
“You?” The professor sounded surprised. Owen was throwing him an urgent look, but Cai didn’t mind him. “Yes Professor.”
“You scrawled this?” The pointy end of her cane was now an inch from his face. “I have to say Mr. Blackwood I am most displeased. Defacing school property, writing vulgarities…”
“Well obviously I wasn’t done yet,” said Cai.
The cane made a very small whooshing sound as it came down on his shoulder. Not a strike, more of an insistent tap. Then it snaked around his neck and pushed him forward. “You will go straight to the Headmaster’s office and tell him exactly what you have done. You will wait there until class has completed and woe betide you, Mr. Blackwood, if I don’t hear a sincere and profuse apology from you then. Go. The rest of you, back to class!”
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