IC Information

Full name: Len Haymen
Nickname(s): None
Gender: Male
Age: 34
Birthday: April 30
Blood: Half
Wand: Apple-wood, phoenix tail, 11 inches
Subject: Groundskeeper
Years at Wolfshaw: Five

Height: 6’1” (160 cm)
Weight: 183 lbs (83 kg)
Eyes: Brown
Hair: None, he shaves his head. It would be black.
Physical Description: Tall and solidly built, Len looks like someone you wouldn’t want to tangle with. Besides being big and strong, he’s got an air about him that just says watch out and his usually closed expression doesn’t do much to off-set that.

Len occasionally flirts with a goatee, but keeps his head meticulously shaved. He’s got a flat nose and bushy eyebrows, but it’s his eyes most people notice and describe as ‘creepy’ because of his tendency to thoughtfully watch people. (Really they’re just ‘expressive’.) His skin is a light brown, but darker on his hands and face due to how much he works outside as well as callused hands and copious amounts of dirt on his clothes.

Also because of his work, Len prefers to wear Muggle-style pants or jeans and plain long-sleeve shirts, even in the summer. He never wears robes except for special occasions. If he did wear short-sleeves, one would be able to see some of his tattoos; a dragon across the top of his back has its tail wrapped around his left bicep and his right forearm is encircled by a design of knots. There’s also a Union Jack on his back, low and on the right, and one of a goofy looking fish on his ass. The ass one was a drunken mistake, and very few people know about.

Personality: Len is anti-social, moody, and creepy. At least at first blush. It’s a perception almost everyone has of him, and he rather prefers things to be that way; it keeps people from wanting to talk to him, which keeps people from asking questions.

Considering his rather guilt-ridden history, Len is relatively well-adjusted. While moody and never inviting conversation, he is never mean-spirited and is polite when addressed. He’s also quite helpful, often doing things around the school that aren’t strictly part of his groundskeeper responsibilities but which still need to be done. He never passes up a chance to lend a hand if he sees it’s needed, but people are often uncomfortable anyway because while doing so he’s still stoic. Whenever he does try to make conversation it’s often awkward. At this point in his life he’s just not used to being friendly to people, and while he does want to be, old habits are hard to break.

Though Len keeps to himself, he often engages in people-watching, which coupled with his closed demeanor makes people give him the ‘creepy’ label. He’s dedicated to his work, and when not engaged in that (it does take up much of his time) he can be found puttering about in his room or perusing new books in the library. Len is very intelligent, and even though a ‘high school’ library isn’t the best place to keep on the cutting edge of magic, he does still like to learn whatever he can find.

Len is fairly even tempered and fair-minded, though certain things (like an invasion of privacy) will spark a rather … fiery burst of anger. His explosions are rare but sudden and generally to be avoided. Another reason most of the students who know him generally leave him his space. There are all kinds of rumors floating around Wolfshaw about Len, his habits, his shady past, and where he hides the bodies of missing students. (He’s never really killed anyone. Well, not at the school at least.)

History: (This history assumes that this year at Wolfshaw is 2007 and the events in Harry Potter took place over 1991-1998. Which I think everyone does but just in case…) (This history is also spoiler-tastic for DH)

Len was born to Rachel Onet-Haymen and Frank Haymen, two average, middle-class inhabitants of Darvy. (Average except for the fact that Rachel was a witch) To the delight of his mother, at least, Len started showing signs of magical ability when he was five years old; his father didn’t much like cleaning up after half-assed spells that usually turned the furniture into mush. And once the cat. Regardless, Len was encouraged and tutored by his mother and at the age of eleven was packed off to Hogwarts where he was sorted into Ravenclaw and excelled at Charms and DADA. Throughout the last year of school he carried on a pretty serious relationship with a fellow Ravenclaw, but they broke it off after graduation when he refused to give up his plans of becoming an auror for a less dangerous career.

Immediately following his graduation from Hogwarts in 1991, Len went to work for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Though he applied to be a full-fledged auror, he missed the cut-off and instead took a job as a Hit-Wizard. (Something like being a patrol cop as opposed to detective.) He was largely unsatisfied; though he got to kick ass on the ‘bad guys’ he felt he was at the bottom of the beurocratic food chain, and the aurors were getting all the juicy Death Eater jobs. Len, on the other hand, was bringing in small-time crooks.

In 1993 Len got the chance to apply again as an auror and was accepted, entering the three-year training and coming out the other side with flying colors. He had a sponsor in the Department, an Undersecretary named Scott Evans, and dreams of far-away assignments, excitement, and when he was ready to stop playing James Bond, a fast-track to the upper offices. Instead his work kept him mostly in London as the fear and suspicion of Voldemort’s return grew. And especially after the incident in the Department of Mysteries when fear turned into full-blown panic. Len was assigned mostly to tracking down ‘tips’ about Death Eaters and finding out if they were true or not. (A surprising number of people were just calling in on people they didn’t like)

When Scrimgeour fell as Minister of Magic and the management changed to more questionable hands, Len was taken off this duty and assigned to help the Muggle Registration Committee. It was Len’s job, along with a half-dozen others, to track down and bring in for questioning those under suspicion of being muggles with stolen wands. At first Len didn’t question his orders, as he was almost fanatically clinging to the view that the Ministry couldn’t possibly have fallen, thus this job couldn’t possibly be wrong. Because if the job was morally wrong, then the Ministry had fallen, then Voldemort was in charge, and that just simply wasn’t acceptable. It was a popular mind-set at the time.

After several months, this line of logic became too thin for even the career-minded Len to follow any longer. At first he just slipped a little, letting certain muggles go and reporting them as missing. Then he even started actively hiding them. But he wasn’t suave enough to avoid getting caught. Evans put his own career on the line to derail the investigation against Len, then took him aside and sternly told Len to get his act together or he’d end up in serious trouble. In fear for both his life and future, Len did exactly that and went back to bringing in Muggle-borns as told. Though he did engage in the occasional subversive action whenever he thought he wouldn’t be caught.

Len was in his cubicle when the last battle at Hogwarts started and everyone there knew about it almost right away. Several of Len’s colleagues left immediately to join the fight, on both sides. Len himself hesitated; though he wanted to fight against the bad guys he knew he would be killed if the wrong side won. And Harry Potter was only a skinny 17, not really a confidence-inspiring age. After debating for far too long, several people returned to the office with the good news that Big Bad Evil had been defeated; Len had missed his chance to join in.

After the downfall of Voldemort and in the instillation of Shacklebolt as MoM, Len was so full of guilt over his actions with the Muggle Registration Committee and much delayed entrance to the fight that he quit the Department. For five months he was a homeless drunk until he made his way back to his parents’ house and got (somewhat) straightened out. After that he bounced from odd-job to odd-job, taking any work that was non-government related and never staying in the same town for too long. After a couple of years of that, he managed to find steady work with his maternal uncle who ran a business selling magical plants and took advantage of Len’s O in Herbology.

For a little more than a year, Len was more or less happy there. He got his own apartment, made some new friends, even started dating again. But that all changed when one day he ran into Matilda Burrow, a woman he’d ‘arrested’ during his time as an auror. She threw a screaming fit in the middle of the busy shop, falling into hysterics and letting anyone within earshot know what Len had done to Muggle-borns in the war. After that his life with his uncle was shot; everyone in the small community treated him like a pariah and it was even hurting business. Though his uncle insisted that it was fine, Len left his work there and then decided to leave the country. After even more wandering and odd-jobs, he ended up in Australia where he heard there was an opening at Wolfshaw for groundskeeper.

He was accepted to the post, but didn’t tell anyone about his previous employment (except the principal, of course) for fear of the same reaction he’d had in England. The initial fear and not being used to socializing in general for the past nine years led to a pretty much established pattern of ‘Let’s just leave Len alone and maybe he won’t kill us.’ (But with so much of the faculty being new this year, that might change) He was sucked into a fiction novel along with the rest of the faculty during the Darkness and actually marks that as another failure to add to his list.

Family: Rachel Onet-Haymen (mother), Frank Haymen (father), Jacob Onet (uncle), Lynne Onet (aunt), various extended family

Broom: Southern Cross 13

Pet(s): A bloodhound named Max (He watched Fang follow Hagrid around for seven years; it’s inconceivable to him now that any decent groundskeeper wouldn’t have a large, loyal dog in tow.)

Extras: No one on staff knows about Len’s past, except that he is from England somewhere, save for possibly Alista and James; as Principal and former Principal they’d have access to his employment history.

N.E.W.T. Results: DADA, Potions, Herbology, Charms – O; Transfiguration, Ancient Runes – E; Arithmancy – A


OOC Information

OOC Name: Elizabeth
Contact Information: cimplybe(AIM) cimplybe@hotmail.com (MSNIM and e-mail)
Character's Intended PB (Played-By): James Lesure
Player's Age: 23
How long have you been RPing?: What have I been saying, three years? That works.
How did you find Wolfshaw?: Already played here.

This post has been edited by Len Haymen on May 29 2008, 12:37 PM