Alexander Harper

OOC

Game	Journal	Portrayed By
Endgame	harpoons	Tahmoh Penikett

Basic Stats

Full Name: Alexander Ulysses Harper IV
Nickname(s): Alex
Gender: Male
Age: 32
Date of Birth: April 19, 1981
Zodiac: Aries
Sexuality: Straight
Relationship Status: Single
Bloodline: Halfblood
Current Residence: Diagon Alley, London, England
House & Year: Slytherin 1999
Occupation: General Assignment Reporter: Daily Prophet
Pet: None

Family

Father: Alexander Ulysses Harper III "Trey" (wizard; Slytherin 1970; barrister; b. May 2, 1952)
Mother: Laura Abigail Haper (née Connolly; witch; Ravenclaw 1975; alchemist; b. September 3, 1956)
Brother: Liam Matthew Harper (wizard; Slytherin 2001; barrister; b. October 1, 1982)
Sister: Marianne Alexandra Harper (witch; Ravenclaw 2003; seer; b. March 13, 1985)

History

The marriage of Laura Connolly to Trey Harper was one they had no control over: their fathers were old friends and had it all planned out almost from the time Laura was a baby, so they grew up knowing that one day they'd be married. That didn't stop Trey from sleeping with any willing female while waiting for his young wife-to-be to be old enough to marry … or stop him from sleeping with any willing female even after he was married. Laura knew of Trey's philandering ways, but she was a realist: theirs wasn't a love match anyway, he was reasonably rich, and the more he slept around, the more he left her to her own devices, so that she could do her own work in alchemy. But, like any good couple with a lineage to secure, they did eventually get around to the business of producing heirs: two sons Alexander and Liam, and a daughter Marianne. By the time Marianne was born, Laura had her hands full with the young children and dismissed Trey from her bed, leaving him to his affairs.

Between his work and his affairs, Trey was rarely home, leaving the raising of his three children primarily to Laura, and whatever nanny they happened to have at the time (they had a habit of losing nannies eventually, usually because Trey eventually bedded them until he bored of them, then fired them). As such, Alex grew up in a house that was rather chilly and mostly devoid of love. Laura made sure her children were fed, clothed, clean, and educated, but she was hardly the warm and loving type, preferring her study of alchemy over bonding with her children. The one ray of sunshine in the Harper household was young Marianne, who somehow managed to be a happy and cheerful young girl, despite their dismal home life. Meanwhile, Alex and Liam were constantly caught up in a struggle to outdo the other for the limited attention of their parents, rivals from before they even knew what that really meant. By the time Alex boarded the Hogwarts Express for his first year in 1992, he was armed with the lessons he'd learned from his father: to never mention his mother's lineage (her mother being a muggle), to find the most important person in his house and to become his follower, and to do whatever it takes to get what he wants. It was unsurprising that he was sorted into his father's former house of Slytherin.

Alex was never much of a leader, so he ended up a follower in the house of snakes, following along with whoever seemed to have the most power over the years. He put in enough effort to his classes to pass, but wasn't particularly interested in any of them. More because his father expected it than any other reason, Alex tried out for the quidditch team every year, though he failed to make it onto the team, no matter what position he tried out for. He got what he thought he wanted when he got to play seeker on the team in his fifth year: Draco Malfoy paid him to take his place for the match against Gryffindor, and to taunt Harry Potter while he did so. He was doing well, too- he almost had the snitch before Harry taunted him back and distracted him: how did Potter know that Malfoy had paid him? He was more pissed at himself than anything when Slytherin lost, and the angry owl he got from his father didn't help matters any, either.

He finished up the year in his usual "don't give a damn" manner after that, gladly relinquishing the seeker position back to Malfoy. That summer, after the Headmaster's death, things basically just went to shit. Not only did war erupt in the wizarding world, but drama erupted closer to home, too. In one of the rare non-war headlines, his father became the subject of much attention when one of his mistresses died while engaged in a particularly kinky act. The details were the source of much gossip amongst those who needed something less heavy than the war to focus on. Only a technicality got Trey off the hook for his mistress' death, but Alex was disgusted with his father. Not so much for the cheating, but for causing the family so much drama.

In the wake of all this, Alex felt it was about time for some belated teenage rebellion. He already didn't give much of a shit about what his parents thought, but he had previously mostly just sulked and was a bit of a snot about things. Now, though, he was more loudly and actively rebellious, rebelling against any authority, no matter who it was. Which, naturally, made his sixth year at school much more difficult, with the Carrows in charge of punishment (just being in Slytherin didn't save him from being punished). When the battle was brought to the school grounds, he did the smart thing and ran, so he at least was able to survive.

He returned the following year to finish school, more because what else was there to do? As soon as he finished school, however, he moved out of his parents' house into a cheap apartment on Diagon Alley. To pay the rent, he looked for a job pretty much anywhere in the Diagon area, and ended up (somehow) working at the Daily Prophet, fetching coffee and basically doing the low-level work that nobody else wanted to do, or that everybody else was too busy to do. He found that he rather liked the hustle and bustle of the news world, and started working his way up the ladder, until finally he got a position as a genuine reporter. He started in obituaries, but by 2007, he moved up from the boring work of talking about death to general assignment reporting.

Of course, just because he was out from under his parents' roof and had a job of his own, that didn't mean that his rebellion subsided. Rather, it seemed to take on a life of its own: he still had issues with people in authority, but managed to curb them enough to keep from getting fired from his job and to move up the ladder. He developed several vices: smoking and drinking, primarily. And he even took a page from his father's book and developed a taste for wild sex (though the particular kink that got his father's mistress dead, autoerotic asphyxiation, was not something he was interested in trying, though that was one of the few lines he drew in bed … or elsewhere). He began "dating" a lot, but never getting serious with any of the girls he was sleeping with. Really, the whole idea of monogamy just makes him roll his eyes in disgust.

Personality

First Impression: What a pig.
Likes: Women with big tits, cigarettes, good firewhiskey, kinky sex, black coffee strong enough to dissolve metal, winning fistfights
Dislikes: Prudes, authority, commitment, losing fistfights, getting crap assignments, obituaries
Overall personality: Alex Harper is a simple man with simple vices: he smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish, and bangs like a screen door in a hurricane. If he can do all three at once, so much the better. He cares very little for the consequences of his actions, figuring that even if he does royally fuck up, his dad or brother could get him out of whatever trouble he managed to get himself into. Alex generally prefers to live in the "now," not focusing on the future or past. The past is behind him and can't be changed, so it doesn't matter, and who can control the future anyway? The world could explode tomorrow, and all your time spent planning for the future would have been wasted. Better to focus on doing what feels good right now, and deal with the consequences when they come.

He doesn't generally have much use for "friends." He has contacts in various places who can help him with getting an inside scoop for his assignments for the prophet, but those are mostly only people with whom he has a mutual agreement of you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours or people who he has something on and can blackmail into helping him. He prefers to go out drinking alone, because other people just get in the way of scoring with that hot chick at the bar. Plus, "friends" might expect you to care about what's going on in their lives, and Alex can't exactly muster the fake interest in anyone else's life.

The only person in the world Alex cares about besides himself is his little sister, Marianne. She's somehow completely pure, innocent, and happy, despite coming from their family, and that feels like something special. He doesn't spend too much time with her, preferring to keep his corruption away from her innocence, but she's the only person he would put himself on the line to protect, because surely her life is worth more than his.