InsaneJournal

User:

exzentrisch (71868)

I'm a rocket ship on my way to Mars → on a collision course
I am a satellite → I'm out of control

View all userpics

Name:

Ritchie Laertes Coote

Jabber:

eccentric (german)

Bio:

Name: Ritchie Laertes Coote
Nicknames: Ritch, Coote, Cootie, Cooter. He doesn't really care what you call him.
Birthdate: February 3, 1981
Former House: Gryffindor
Bloodline: Halfblood, more or less.
Wand: 11", Almond, Essence of Pixie Hair
Wand Hand: Right
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 159
Eyes: blue
Hair: brown
Pet: Two toads (Fucker and Ravioli)

Parents: Gavin Dafydd Coote and Esyllt Tegan Coote nee Haddock (deceased)
Sibling: Riannon Imogen Coote (28 - Squib)
Home: ~~Cardiff, Wales~~ Camden, London, England
Other: Bethan Haddock, Vaughn Haddock (mother's sister and brother)
Status: Lower middle class

Sexual Orientation: Straight
Social Status: Single
Turn Ons: women, skirts, petite, blonde, brunette, freckles (sparingly), breasts, legs
Turn Offs: prudes, monotony, masculine, fat, flat
Past Relationships: Quite a few, more muggles over the summers than anything else. One significant one.
Current Relationship: --

Likes: females, his toads, his family, his sister's cats, Zonko's, Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, Star Wars, streaking, dancing
Dislikes: people asking him about his blood, dogs, his middle name, the entire concept of Divination, daydreams, falling asleep in class (though he does it often), monotony, people insulting his penis (it's AVERAGE), insinuations about his sexuality, people insulting his mother
Strengths: He's kind of good at Quidditch. He doesn't think it's his best thing, and he doesn't really intend on going into it professionally, but he was a good enough Beater to get on the Gryffindor team. He wouldn't have gotten in Gryffindor if he weren't brave, and he is. He would've fought in the war if he'd been old enough or if his parents had let him, and he's stood up for his sister more than a few times to various people: no matter how young or old they were. Nobody fucks with his sister.
Weaknesses: He's completely tactless and lacks the ability to censor himself. He has a small sense of decorum, a very thin verbal and physical filter, and he doesn't bother to keep secrets (of his own). If he likes someone, it's obvious. Very obvious. He says whatever is on his mind at the moment to whomever he wants. He's also a rather hopeless romantic, though (though he considers himself incapable of holding a relationship and he's never done a single remotely romantic thing for a girl), which he considers his biggest flaw. He tries to cover that up with asshattery. He also doesn't do well with being ignored.
Quirks: He bites his nails when thinking hard, laughs at inappropriate times, and his voice cracks when he lies or is especially flustered. Only a few people have picked up on it, surprisingly. He also starts talking fast when he's worked up.
Random: Occasionally dances like an idiot in his dormitory (mostly when one of his dormitory mates are being emotional retards) and in front of everybody when he's drunk, allergic to peanuts, cleans when bored sometimes, dabbles in writing shitty poetry, speaks Welsh fluently, has a tattoo of a badger with his mother's initials on his shoulder blade, has a tattoo of the symbol for the Jedi Order on his left bicep

Personality: Ritchie is, for lack of a more colorful term, chaotic. He was the toddler who ripped his diaper off and ran around butt naked. He was the kid who climbed on anything that looked high enough and proceeded to attempt to fly. He is still the teenager that dances like an idiot for laughs. It is impossible to embarrass Ritchie. He'll do anything for the right attention, and he believes the right attention is any attention. Honest and extremely uninhibited, Ritchie rarely holds anything back and will say anything to any person at any given time. He can, however, keep secrets. Usually, that is. Sometimes he does slip up and spill everything. He can't help it.

Ritchie aspires to be everything the Weasley twins are while maintaining his own identity. His dream is to work in their shop, and the sooner the better. Ritchie pulls pranks like the twins, but he isn't as crafty with coming up with products like they are. He's extremely random and says the stupidest things to make people laugh. Just don't expect him to be funny like a stand-up comedian. Ritchie is funny in a stranger sense of the word, and he likes buying strange things for his friends. But he can't be happy and spastic all the time. Ritchie deeply loathes when anyone mentions his mother in a demeaning manner, and if the person persists, he has been known to curse at them in Welsh. If that doesn't make them stop - which it ususally doesn't - he'll go for fistfighting, which doesn't usually work out for him. Ritchie isn't the best fighter and he knows it.

He is prone to slumps in his pranking and dancing, and he's not immune to bad moods and sulking. If he's ignored or something he's done isn't reacted to the way he'd hoped, he can fall into a bad mood. Ritchie dances to try to get others out of bad moods, but that doesn't work on himself. Fortunately, he usually works himself out of bad moods rather quickly, as sooner or later he realizes he's sulking, so he usually figures a way out of it soon. He likes finding ways to purposefully annoy people he doesn't like, and he is by no means afraid of making a fool of himself in order to do that. He's not biased by house: if you're a prat you're a prat regardless of what house you're in, and just because someone is a Slytherin doesn't automatically mean they're a prat. It just happens to hold true a lot.

History: Every family has their rock, and Gavin Coote was used to being that rock since he was eleven. The son of a muggle father and a wizarding mother, he grew up in Wales entirely clueless of another plane of existence that he himself would become a part of. His mother had told no one on her husband's side of the family about the fact that she was a witch: she hadn't even told her husband. The man was flummoxed when Gavin, their only child, recieved a letter from a certain wizarding school in Scotland. Aderyn, Gavin's mother, stood in the back and watched Madoc, her husband, yell at their child for making up such an extensive lie: he'd even gotten a professional-looking seal somehow, and it wasn't anything Madoc recognized. Gavin retreated to his room without a word: he had no clue what was going on. He hadn't faked any letter inviting him to a school of witchcraft and wizardry. Gavin knew magic didn't exist. It was something only in books and on television. Aderyn pulled Madoc aside later that night after deciding it was time to tell him everything, which she knew she should've done before they'd had children - before they'd gotten married. Madoc didn't take it well. He shouted in Welsh for the rest of the evening, though he still slept next to his wife. He was gone the following morning, and Aderyn and Gavin were eventually forced to go live with her parents.

Elsewhere in Wales, Esyllt Haddock lived quite a different life. She, like Gavin, didn't believe in magic and was clueless of the world she'd be thrown into after she turned eleven. Her parents reacted entirely differently to the Hogwarts letter and wanted to know all about it: if Esyllt knew what the place was, how she would get there, where she would get her things. Esyllt knew nothing of the letter and was completely unable to answer their questions. She soon found out, though, that there was a place in London called the Leaky Cauldron, and it was a veritable doorway to the other realm. Esyllt went with her parents, Pryce and Sian, and her two siblings, Vaughn (her elder brother) and Bethan (her younger sister), to London and stayed in the town for a week: long enough for Esyllt to familiarize herself with the wizarding world, as they all realized - with the possible exception of Bethan - that she needed to become familiar with all of it. She would, in a matter of weeks, be thrust into it on her own after all. By the time it came for them to return to London to send her off on the train, she'd familiarized herself as much as she thought she could. She'd read up on the school and activities in the school, famous wizards and witches, the professors, and she'd also gotten her wand, robes, and textbooks.

Esyllt and Gavin met right away at the sorting, but neither had any opinion at all of the other. They'd merely seen each other, and it didn't seem as if they'd immediately strike up any sort of acquaintance once they were sorted into different houses: Gavin into Gryffindor and Esyllt into Hufflepuff. Esyllt made friends easily, as she'd grown up very outgoing, and one of her friends was also friends with Gavin. The boy didn't make friends so easily, though. He only had a few his first year, and they mostly consisted of his dormitory mates. Gavin was definitely not as outgoing as Esyllt, as he couldn't seem to be able to be outgoing after being yelled at so often by his father and then having the man walk out on them. They had one mutual friend, though. As they grew and succeeded in school, their acquaintence through one mutual friend became an acquaintence of their own once that person retreated into their studies when it came time for O.W.L.s in fith year. They were used to each other's company, so why shouldn't they become friends? They each dated other students, and Esyllt and Gavin didn't date each other until after they graduated. They met by chance in Cardiff, where they'd both moved to find work. Their friendship became a courtship, and that courtship became an engagement. A few years later, their first child was born. They named her Riannon Imogen after a character from Shakespeare's "Cymbeline."

Ritchie followed five years later, earning his middle name from "Hamlet." Esyllt definitely had a penchant for Shakespeare, and if it had been left up to her, her children's first names would have been Imogen and Laertes. Gavin wouldn't allow it, though. He didn't want his children to be named after a vengeful Dane and a princess, but he allowed her to use those names as their middle names. Being two wizarding parents, they were expecting Riannon's Hogwarts letter around the time of her eleventh birthday. It never came. They took her to Diagon Alley, anyway, just in case her letter had gotten lost in the post. Leaving Ritchie with Esyllt's parents (though Gavin's mother had long since been able to support herself independently), they stopped at Ollivander's first and had her try wands, but she couldn't get a single one to do a thing. After going through five wands, Ollivander suggested that she might be a Squib. Without even having full knowledge of what a Squib was, Riannon wept into her father's coat. She knew it wasn't good: she knew somehow that she couldn't do magic like her parents. Esyllt left her husband alone with their daughter as he tried to comfort her, and she went across to the Magical Menagerie. She bought Riannon a tabby cat, which brought the girl right out of her upset state. She named the cat Slippers right off the bat, and they took their daughter and her new cat home. They each told their parents soon after, and Riannon told Ritchie she couldn't do magic. The six-year-old Ritchie burst out into an insane dance to cheer his sister up, which caused her to laugh until she couldn't breathe. He still does that.

Ritchie was the child who climbed up onto the top of a bookcase and tried to fly. He was practically fearless...unless a dog was nearby. Ritchie had an irrational fear of dogs when he was younger after his uncle's dog knocked him over when he was a toddler. He cried at the sight of one. He did eventually get over it, though he still doesn't like dogs much. He got his Hogwarts letter just when it was supposed to come, but he tried to hide it so it wouldn't upset his sister. She had Slippers, but she still couldn't do magic. Ritchie didn't want her to get upset again; he'd never liked it when anyone was upset. They all found out about it, though. Riannon wasn't upset. She had her muggle school friends and Slippers. She was happy for Ritchie and wanted to hear all about it after his first night. After being sorted into Gryffindor like his dad had been, Ritchie made quick friends with Andrew Kirke and Colin Creevey, though to a lesser extent. Colin was usually busy stalking Harry Potter, who Ritchie had heard about from his parents. Everyone knew about Harry Potter, but unlike Colin, Ritchie didn't go out of his way to associate with him. He followed Quidditch, though, and Harry was good. He'd been acquaintences with Ginny Weasley as well, so he wasn't too pleased with Harry when Ginny ended up hurt in the Chamber of Secrets. Gavin and Esyllt owled and considered pulling Ritchie out of school right away, but he wouldn't let them. They eventually gave in, Harry ended up saving Ginny and being the hero again, and all was right with the world for a while.

His second year involved the escape of Sirius Black from Azkaban and a large black dog chasing the Fat Lady out of her painting. Ritchie fortunately hadn't been around to see said dog completely ruin the painting and chase the inhabitant out, though. No one had. His third year, when he could finally go to Hogsmeade, Ritchie found himself emulating Fred and George Weasley for a while, pulling as many pranks as possible, losing any shard of respect for Harry Potter after he put his own name in the Goblet of Fire, and later mourning the loss of Cedric Diggory. That was the one time he hadn't tried to cheer anyone up. Ritchie hadn't been that far gone yet to be incapable of tact. His fourth year found the arrival of yet another Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, but Umbridge was worse than anything he'd ever seen. Her obvious contempt for anything halfbreed pissed him off (for the first time in his life he was cursing and enjoying it), and he wondered her position on Squibs. It had gotten out his first year that Filch was a Squib, though, and Umbridge seemed quite taken with him. Ritchie thought the two of them would've made a fetching couple: they both liked cats and both were impossible to tolerate. Liking cats, after all, was nothing: Ritchie liked cats. His sister liked cats. He and his sister weren't flat out evil like Umbridge and Filch, though. Peeves and the Weasley twins had bested her, though, and Ritchie had never wanted to be like them more. He'd also managed to get his hands onto a toad, which he'd affetionately named Fucker.

His fifth year was just odd. He'd been beaters on the Quidditch team with Drew, though, so that was fun for how long it lasted. Dumbledore had told everyone at the end of his third year that Voldemort had come back, and Harry Potter had been insisting it as well. Ritchie's parents both believed Dumbledore, and the whole wizarding world seemed to be just waiting for a war. After Dumbledore was killed, it happened. Riannon had gotten another cat, Mittens, and had moved to her own flat on the other side of Cardiff, and Ritchie returned home with his parents at the end of his fifth year. Hogwarts had lost a few students and a headmaster, and the school wasn't reopened the next September due to the war. Ritchie had wanted to fight, but his parents hadn't let him. Neither of them fought, and they wouldn't let him fight. Ritchie sulked for a while and went to stay with his sister in her flat for a bit. His father came a few days later for what seemed like a normal visit: his mother was home nursing a cold and she'd sent him with the message that she wanted her son home. Ritchie agreed, not wanting to upset his mother any further, so he and his father bade Riannon, Mittens, and Slippers goodbye and returned to their house. The Dark Mark was floating over their roof, the front door was left open, and Esyllt was dead.

Ritchie was changed by his mother's death, as anyone would've been, but he knew she wouldn't have wanted the change to be permanent. With that knowledge, he returned to his usual self in a matter of weeks, but that didn't mean that he wasn't affected. Everyone grieves in their own way, and Ritchie's way was something akin to avoidance. Yes, he'd been calmer for a while, and his sister had come home to stay for a few weeks and tried to do her part despite not being able to do magic, but Ritchie, in the end, returned to normal. He didn't want to go back to school, though, when the time came. Ritchie had to help his father with things, but the man pushed him back into Hogwarts. Ritchie knew his dad was right and that he needed to be back in school, and right away, he knew it wouldn't be that bad. It was Hogwarts. Of course, he couldn't go back to school without doing something stupid first. He went and got a tattoo. Near his shoulder blade, Ritchie got a little badger with "EC" in small letters near the tail in remembrance of his mother.

Astrology: Gryffindor Aquarians are the social activists and loons of their House. They'll picket for House Elf Liberation. They'll wear their robes inside out because they spent all night reading, not pay attention to how they dressed the next day, and not care if their rumpled appearance is pointed out to them. They are intellectual rebels and will loudly defend their opinions, even if doing so makes enemies. They are apt to question authority. "Even Merlin was wrong, some of the time," they'll say, shrugging. While not particularly good at dealing with crisis situations (they stress out easily) they do tend to have enough foresight to see the situations coming, and prevent them from happening in the first place. They can be flamboyantly talented, but are less interested in using their talent to "make it big" than in using it to make a better life for themselves or other people. Because Gryffindor tends to be a flamboyant house, these oddballs (they are always odd) tend to stick out for being unusual.

Not Ritchie Coote. Not Chris Lowell.
This portrayal of Ritchie Coote belongs to me.
Chris Lowell belongs to himself.
The world of HP and the name of Ritchie Coote belong to JKR.
Banner and any uncredited icons credit to dearfrankie.

Memories:

9 entries

Schools:

None listed

Friends:

	25:	adorning, adrianhere, andidrew, anoldstory, baddockthefirst, blarper, burrandy, chancingly, combing_edges, dormirdraconis, exzentrisch, fortiori_mods, heartofalion, littlemissrosee, lunamoto, mandyjane, nickderrick, oldestdavies, opaquely, raydbole, silentgiggles, transcendental, verachtung, vickyvaporrub, zwingen
	4:	fortiori_ooc, fortiori_owls, fortiori_rpg, fregan

Account type:

Self-committed [paid]

(more details...)