HUNTER, Lance

[Lance Hunter]

General Information

Full Name: Lance Hunter.
Nickname(s): Jokingly calls himself "Lancelot," on an almost daily basis, tends to go by Hunter or Lance.

He also got himself dubbed as the Hogwarts "Santa," after going overboard one year when it came to the decorations (though he was just as bad when it came to Halloween and his own birthday.) Sometimes makes students call him Professor despite the fact he isn't one.
Gender: Male.
Sexuality: Heterosexual.
Race: Human.
Date of Birth (Age): 34, 8th June1998.
Blood Status: Muggleborn.
Family: He's currently only in touch with his younger brother, sister in law and niece.
Mother - Moira McStay-Hunter, 69, a former secretary.
Brother - Christian Hunter, 43, Banker.
Sister - Rhiannon Hunter, 39, unemployed.

Brother - Jack Hunter, 31, Electrician.
Sister-In-Law - Rayna Madden, 29, Psychiatric nurse.
Niece - Holly Madden, 8, muggle primary school student.

(Former) House: Gryffindor
Occupation: Hogwarts Caretaker.

Face Claim: Jeff Ward.

Height: 5ft 9 ¼ - 175.9 cm
Hair: Dark brown.
Eye Color: Hazel-Green.
Skin Tone: Caucasian, slightly tan depending on if it's Summer and if he's been working outdoors.

Other Remarks: When he can he tucks his wand behind his ear like a pencil.

He smokes like a Chimney, usually in one of the abandoned towers as to avoid students and the wrath of a certain disapproving Professor. (Also refuses to use magic to light the cigarettes.)  Although he keeps claiming that he's quitting and so carries around a cigarette box with MNM's inside of them, something he likes to use to introduce purebloods to the magic that is muggle sweets.

Lance is known for belting out, badly sung, songs as he works that are usually Christmas Carols for most of the year. Has a habit of talking to himself and imparting random knowledge onto students that he claims is wisdom.

His pet is a fat cat named 'Merlin,' that likes to beg students for scraps and is often found roaming around the castle seeking attention. (It isn't unheard of for Merlin to just sleep in random students dorms, commandeer books as beds and scratching posts or steal students quills. He's also been known to play fetch.)

Wizard/Witch Index

Wand Core: Dragon Heartstring.
Wand Wood: Fir.
Wand Length: 10 " Inches
Wand Flexibility: Swishy.

Patronus: Capuchin Monkey, it was a Mongrel Dog when he first learned how to cast the spell.

Abilities: Wandless and Non-Verbal magic, it's useful for giving other students a fright or playing (mostly) harmless jokes on them.

Personality and History
Lance is rough around the edges with what he likes to think of as a roguish charm, which in reality is more of a quirkiness you'd find in that relative that never quite managed to grow up. He's evolved and changed a lot since he first arrived at Hogwarts, almost unrecognisable when compared to the hot-headed brash young man he had once been. Although his hot-headedness still remains, though now it's directed towards the Hogwarts paintings, uncooperative pipping and meddlesome students rather than walls and Professors.

He was sorted into Gryffindor, something he hadn't expected when he was first told about the Houses - he hadn't considered himself particularly brave (though he could never deny that he's brash and headstrong) or chivalrous and would have thought himself more of a Hufflepuff (He was loyal to the people that mattered and a hard worker when he cared enough,) and could be quite cold and self-serving (How he viewed Slytherins at the time.)

He's quite a bright person to be around, sporadic and cheerful with a hint of a dark sarcastic humour that he lets rip of particularly annoying students or to annoy the other Hogwarts Staff and Professors. Sometimes he wonders how he got the job, he was good at maintaining and looking after the castle and happy to do the random odd jobs that magic couldn't quite do, as he was probably as unprofessional as they came. Playing harmless jokes on students, a self-proclaimed matchmaker and agony aunt/yoda. (It wasn't unheard of for students to hide in his office and lament their worries to him, though it was usually a one-time thing once they realised how bad his advice was.) Regardless of his unprofessionalism, his heart is usually in the right place, he has a soft spot for the misfits and loners and even tries to steer the bullies onto a better path, partly because of the fact he sees himself in them.

He's working to repay Hogwarts for getting him away from his family and for not giving up on him when it really should have. (And for assisting in flooding the Prefects bathrooms one year but no one really needs to know that.)

However, he still has his flaws, a temper that he struggles to keep in check means he can often lose it quite quickly and for the wrong reasons. Yelling at an innocent student because he thought they were the one to break something or letting out a steady stream of curses unfit for eleven-year-olds innocent ears.

Lance is by no means perfect but he's getting there and the students tend to love him anyway, most of the time.

History
Lance Hunter was born to a single Mother in an East London Council Estate, in the kind of place where fun was lighting a wheelie bin on fire or throwing stones off of trees, she hadn't been the best Mother to him or his siblings but she'd been there for them as much as she could. She'd been forced to balance three jobs to make ends meet and so the siblings were often left to themselves, Lance often being left to trail after his two older siblings - much to their annoyance and frustration.

It wasn't the best or most typical childhood but up until his eleventh birthday it had been a good one.

The Hogwarts acceptance letter had ruined that. Instantly, upon being proven to not be some joke or trick, turning him into a freak in his families eyes. Only his younger brother didn't see him as something that needed to be fixed or something wrong. Looking back on it Lance could understand why, he still resented them for it and it still hurt him, but he could understand why. Having everything you've known be turned up on its axis, his Mother being told her son was practically a different species and that she wouldn't be able to understand anything that was about to happen to him, his siblings essentially being told that their younger brother was special and had what a kid would view as superpowers whilst they were left with nothing.

But back then, to Lance, he'd just felt like a freak. His family were scared of him, small random occurrences of strange happenings suddenly being attributed to him (some were cases of accidental magic not that he knew that whilst others had been freak accidents.) And they acted like they were scared of him and jealous of what he could do.

He hadn't wanted to go to the school, he'd begged the man who took him to Diagon Alley to take the magic away, he wanted to feel and be normal again. But there wasn't anything he could do, so Lance swore to make sure that the Wizarding World wouldn't want him and hoped that if that happened his life would be normal again. It was the kind of sad logic that made sense to a conflicted, hurt and confused eleven-year-old boy whose world had been shattered.

So he lashed out at other students, refused to work or pay attention during lessons and got into as much trouble as he could. Something that continued over the years, steadily getting worse as he got further into his time at Hogwarts. He was disliked by staff and students alike during his time there and it was his own fault.

He was determined to make the Wizarding World hate him as much as he'd convinced himself he'd hated it, projecting his anger and anxiety and feelings of abandonment and of being a freak towards the world around him. He'd never really been one for internalisation or compartmentalisation.

It was on his fifteenth birthday that a letter arrived, just before the start of his fifth year. It was from his Mam but it wasn't the birthday card that a small part of him had been hoping for, despite the lack of them before.  Instead, it had been an order, disguised as a polite request, to not return home for the coming summer holidays. She said that he wasn't welcome, she didn't recognise what he was and that sixteen was old enough for him to start making it on his own.

He remembers she tried to lessen the blow with news of how it'd be better for Jack and how she herself had moved out at sixteen but all that Lance could think of was that his Mother didn't even want him anymore and she hadn't been able to tell him face to face.

A part of him had known it was coming, the part of him that had felt the building sense of dread ever since that fateful acceptance letter informing him of what it was that he was. A wizard. Had felt it every time he went home and was ignored, shunned and interacted with as little as possible. (Barring his younger brother's kindness.)

He'd rebelled against it for five years, fighting to be normal again so that his life could go back to how it was - back to before his Mother eyed him up like he was someone else. Like someone that had replaced her son. He could remember reading about changelings as a kid and couldn't help but feel like that was what he was, something made out of mud and stone that had replaced her son. He'd tried so hard to reject it, being a wizard and having magic and it hadn't mattered.

It hadn't mattered because she'd kicked him out regardless.

He'd sacrificed his chance at making friends, made himself and everyone else miserable and made the Professors hate him just in case it meant he'd get to be normal again and she'd kicked him out. She'd made it so he didn't belong in either world, caught in the middle of it all.

Lance kept it to himself for as long as he could before it all came tumbling out during a lesson, he'd gotten into a fight with another student (he had bruised knuckles and a bloody nose, the other had a split lip and what was thought to be a sprained writ.) His head of House had taken him into the office and before Lance knew what was happening it all came tumbling out, his Mam, being kicked out, technically being homeless and he hadn't expected them to do anything. Shrug it and him off, send him off with a merry wave and an insincere uttering of 'Good Luck kid!' He didn't expect to be considered their problem or for them to care.

And to his surprise they did, they arranged it with the Caretaker that he could stay over during the Summer Holidays if he wanted. Although he'd be expected to help out. Or they'd get in touch with the Ministry and get them to find a Muggle Housing officer who, as far as they would be concerned, would be informed that his pastoral mentor at his boarding school had found out the truth and he'd be placed into muggle emergency housing.

He didn't fully understand why but he chose the first option, for the first time not rejecting the idea of being part of the Wizarding World and that summer turned out to be the greatest one of his life, the caretaker was a good mentor for him (even if the man had been pretty firm and straight-laced for Lance's tastes.) And he liked helping maintain the castle and it's grounds. Plus it felt fitting to help fix the place he'd been partially responsible for damaging via various pranks and outbursts of anger.

After that Summer Lance became a much better student, he was by no means Prefect material, but he started to engage in lessons and try to catch up with everyone else. He stopped being as angry and destructive, being friendly and helpful to other students. And after many long nights and exhausting study sessions and catch-up lessons, he was practically years behind everyone else, he even managed to pass his OWLS after resitting his fifth year (More like scrape them with a lot of extra help) albeit a year later than everyone else.

It was one of his proudest moments, opening that letter and the moment that cemented his acceptance with what he was. Maybe he wasn't such a freak or a failure after all. He stayed on at Hogwarts, managing to do NEWTS in Divination and Defence Against The Dark Arts, though he failed the former he managed to get an 'E' in the latter. A grade he'd been over the moon with.

Then the end of his seventh year came and after much debate he decided that he knew what he wanted to do, due to a mixture of wanting to repay the school for what it had done and because he had actually enjoyed the job, he stayed on to help the Caretaker as the Apprentice Caretaker who would take over once the older man retired.

And eleven years later, after some tears (that Lance will forever deny) and a heartfelt goodbye the older man retired and Lance Hunter became the next Hogwarts Caretaker, a position he was happy to stay in until the day he died. Even if it was the opposite of what he had imagined doing as a child.

He loved the school and he loved his job, even when students made his life infinitely harder.
Out of Character

What should we call you? Mephobia/Em.

Other Characters: Niamh Lenora Finnigan, Thomas Reid, Natalia Adelia Morse, Eric Michael Mackenzie, Jiaying Lauchlan-Zee.
Experience: Just over 5 years.

How did you find us? RPNation.

[James William WilsonAdmin]

Brilliantly done, Em! Amazing!

ACCEPTED, and sorted into [Hogwarts Staff] and [Male].