Terry Boot

OOC

Game	Journal	Portrayed By
Wait and Hope	bootilicious	Julian Morris

Basic Stats

Full Name: Terry Irving Boot
Nickname(s): None
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Date of Birth: November 23, 1979
Zodiac: Sagittarius
Sexuality: Straight
Relationship Status: Dating Parvati Patil
Bloodline: Halfblood
Hometown: Nottingham, East Midlands, England
House & Year: Ravenclaw 7th
Extracurriculars: Quidditch chaser; astronomy club; Dumbledore's Army; Resistance
Wand: 9.5 in, ash, phoenix tail feather
Pet: None

Family

Father: Edward Boot (wizard; Hufflepuff 1968; herbologist)
Mother: Deborah Boot (née Shimpling; witch; Ravenclaw 1973; potionere)
Sister: Thalia Vance (née Boot; witch; Hufflepuff 1996; works in floo regulation)
    Brother-in-Law: Elijah Vance (wizard; Hufflepuff 1995; healer)
    Sister-in-Law: Tabitha Vance (witch; Gryffindor 6th)
Brother: Tristan Boot (wizard; Hufflepuff 4th)
Brother: Tyler Boot (wizard; Hufflepuff 2nd)

Maternal grandfather: Derwent Shimpling (wizard)
Maternal grandmother: Maitane Shimpling (née Max; witch)
Uncle: Denton Shimpling (wizard; Ravenclaw 1968; unspeakable)
Aunt: Wendy Shimpling (witch; Ravenclaw 1970; employee: Museum of Magical History)
    Cousin: Gemma Christine Shimpling (witch; Ravenclaw 5th)
    Cousin: Quinton Shimpling (wizard; Ravenclaw 2nd)

Paternal grandfather: Trevor Boot (wizard)
Paternal grandmother: Rose Boot (witch)

Second Cousin: Peter Alan Stebbins (wizard; healer; share Boot great-grandparents)
Second Cousin: Logan Alan Stebbins (wizard; Hufflepuff 6th; share Boot great-grandparents)

History

Some might argue that it would make perfect sense for a potionere and an herbologist to be married. After all, the potionere would then have excellent access to many plants that she might need for her potions. It also served as a way for Edward Boot and Deborah Shimpling to meet: on an errand for her Potions Master while an apprentice, Deborah ended up meeting journeyman Herbologist Edward. Soon, Deborah was finding excuses to go by the herbologist's, and Edward was finding excuses to go to the potionere's. It was a few months of this before Edward finally got up the nerve to ask Deborah out on a date. That first date led to a second and a third, and soon they were seeing each other steadily. They had barely been dating a year when they eloped in October of 1975, terrified as they were by the brewing unease in the wizarding world as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named rose to power. They were not the only young couple to rush into marriage in those years, though the love that had been brewing since their first meeting helped to keep them together during the hard times.

Over the next ten years, they had four children: Thalia, Terry, Tristan, and Tyler. It was Deborah's idea to give the children all names that started with the same letter, after her own family, and Edward suggested the letter T. They thought it would be cute. And, growing up, Terry kind of liked having that link to his siblings. Thalia called him weird for being so fascinated with them all having the same initials. And, well, that was just one of the ways in which Terry was, yes, a little bit weird and a bit different from his three siblings. For one thing, he desperately loved to read (in fact, when Thalia was learning to read, Terry wanted to learn right alongside her, jealous that she would get to do this and he couldn't), and he would stay up for hours after bedtime, hiding under his covers with a torch and a book, absorbing all the knoweldge he could get. He was never much into fiction, always wanting to read histories and biographies: what fiction he did read was often similar to these types of books. In the muggle primary school that his parents sent him and his siblings to, he was quickly labeled a geek. To try to fit in better, Terry took an interest in sports. Muggle football thanks to his schoolmates, but also quidditch. When he played sports, it was harder for his classmates to dismiss him as just another geek, so it was easier for him to make friends. Not to mention that he didn't particularly look like a jock, so he discovered that he could win small bets with people by simply doing well in sports when they expected him to fall flat on his arse. But he was good natured about it and a gracious winner … but of course that didn't mean he'd give the money (or whatever was bet) back to the loser.

Thalia went off to Hogwarts first, of course. Terry was just a few months shy of ten years old when his older sister went off to Hogwarts and was sorted into Hufflepuff, leaving the three boys behind at home. Terry missed his older sister, of course, but he had his brothers and his books, as well as the knoweldge that he would be joining her at Hogwarts in just two years (oh, the injustice of it all: being only a few months too young to start next year!). Terry spent the next two years much in the way he'd spent the past few: by reading a lot and playing sports. When the time finally came for Terry to head off to Hogwarts, he was ready and excited. He knew already that he would be sorted into Ravenclaw, and the hat didn't disagree with him, sending him off to the blue and bronze table after only barely grazing his head.

Terry's years at Hogwarts were about as to be expected: classes, friends (he quickly made friends with his roommates and the other Ravenclaws in his year, but especially Michael Corner and Anthony Goldstein), quidditch. He made it onto the house team as a chaser in his third year, surprising those who didn't know him well because, well, as in school, not many people expected the boy who could spout of the most random historic trivia facts could also play quidditch, especially since he looked like a strong wind would blow him over. Oh, sure, there was always some near-apocalypse every year near the end of the year, and it certainly made the school years interesting, but Terry tried to approach everything (the Heir of Slytherin, the escaped convict Black) rationally. When the Tri-Wizard Cup came to Hogwarts (along with the pretty Beauxbatons girls!), Terry never even considered tossing his name into the Cup, even if it had been open to younger-years: even with quidditch, he was more brains than brawn and knew it would be fruitless to try something that had a tendency to kill older witches and wizards. As such, even though Harry Potter was The Boy Who Lived, he cheered on Cedric Diggory: not so much because he thought Potter cheated (though, he is curious how the guy got his name into the cup) or anything like that, it was more that he had more confidence in Cedric being able to win, simply because of his greater levels of knowledge. Of course, he should have learned the lesson he'd taught plenty of others about not judging a book by its cover: he was shocked when Harry Potter won, and greatly disturbed that Cedric Diggory was dead. And all rationality fled when Potter was proclaiming that He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named was back. Harry Potter had vanquished him when they were all too young to have known the first war, but Terry had read histories and heard stories, and that was certainly a large part of history that he did not want to see repeated.

Despite the Prophet and the Ministry calling Harry a liar all summer, Terry didn't doubt Harry: he'd proven himself to be a force to be reckoned with the past four years, and this wasn't exactly something that someone would go about lying about. Plus, anyone who loves histories as much as Terry does knows that the government and the media tend more towards the what-the-people-want-to-hear than towards the truth. So in fifth year, when Michael told him about a defense group that Harry was starting to counteract Professor Umbridge (yes, Terry liked reading, but there was just no way to learn Defense simply through reading about it: you needed the practical application, as well, especially since there was a practical component to the Defense OWL coming up at the end of the year), Terry needed no convincing: he was there. And he enjoyed Dumbledore's Army, it gave him a chance to really feel like he was actually doing well in Defense (it hadn't been one of his strongest subjects, previously). And when Malfoy ambushed Potter on the train home at the end of the year, Terry was there to help fight back. Although sixth year was riddled with disappearances and deaths, life inside the castle's walls still seemed more or less safe … until the Headmaster died. Suddenly, the castle no longer felt safe. But it still felt safer than the world outside the castle walls, he never even considered staying home from his seventh year (though he did consider trying to get his brothers to stay home).

So far, the first half of seventh year has been, well, shite would be the kindest word. Although he joined Padma's resistance unhesitatingly, and although the DA is once again active and fighting against the administration, and although his sister got herself engaged (and then married on Christmas Eve), the attacks on students (under the guise of "punishments" for "rule breaking") have steadily grown worse and worse, crossing lines that should never be crossed, in schools or otherwise (such as the Carrows' experimentations on Morag). Up until now, he's focused on being more in the background of things: voice of reason, helping with the set-up and letting others take on the implementation of plans. But it's only inevitable that he'll reach his breaking point and take a more active role in both the resistance and DA eventually.