Maier, Chace

[chace]

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{ A B O U T . Y O U }

Name: Didi
Gender: Femme
Age: Twenty, apparently.
E-mail: [e-mail]
Twitter: www.twitter.com/xhappyxendingsx
Years of RPG Experience: A handful
Other: removed by staff

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{ Q U I C K . Q U I Z }

How did you find us? I found a link in Ellie’s pants.
What about ISS inspired you to join? I wondered who else’s pants I could get into.
Do you have any suggestions for us? You guys wear pants too much.

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{ A B O U T . T H E . C H A R A C T E R }

Name: Chace Morgan Maier.
Age: Fifteen.
Gender: Homme.
Year: Fifth.
Face Claim: Dustin Milligan.

Canon or Original? Original.

Facial Properties: Not intending to sound biased at all, but it can safely be said that Chace is a handsome young man. His face is a bit on the rectangular side, though his chin is nicely rounded to give him a “softer” appearance. On top of his head is a mess of wavy dark hair, which he prefers to keep short as it’s rather thick and makes his head all hot and sweaty when it gets too long. That, and it starts to look ridiculous, in his opinion. His forehead is a little on the smaller side, but it still looks proportionate to his face. His eyebrows are thick and dark like his hair, and admittedly they look a bit wild, but he’s not letting anyone go near them with tweezers to wax. It’s not like he has a unibrow or anything; his are just thicker. They have clean edges, too, so he doesn’t see why their shape is a necessity. His eyes are heavy-lidded, sometimes giving him the appearance of being “sleepy” despite being fully awake. To him, they’re grey in colour – but everything is grey to Chace, seeing that he’s colourblind. Yep, Chace is afflicted with cerebral achromatopsia, meaning that his brain cannot perceive colours. He’s had it as long as he can remember, though he wasn’t born colourblind. Moving along, Chace has a bit of a curved nose, something he finds a bit annoying but isn’t vain enough to actually complain about. And, finally, Chace has a small mouth with nice, full lips; in fact, his upper lip sometimes looks thicker than his lower. Overall, Chace has a very soft-looking appearance, something he quite enjoys about himself, actually.
Physique: Chace is a damn giant. Well, okay, he hasn’t reach his full height yet – give him a break, he’s only fifteen – but when he does, he’s expected to tower above his classmates at 6’3”. He’s quite lean and slender, though it’s fairly obvious that he has considerable muscle development beneath his clothes. With all the extreme sports he enjoys doing, he needs to stay in shape. He jogs almost daily and lifts little hand-weights that he brings to school with him. Summer activities, such as rock climbing, ensure that his legs and arms are quite muscular. Chace has a well-defined abdomen, something he’s actually quite proud of. He loves being out in the sun, so he’s fairly evenly darkened all over. Chace was blessed with naturally smooth skin, and his chest is virtually hairless. His hands are on the larger side and he has long, supple fingers, and enjoys the fact that he can make people shudder when he shows off that he’s double-jointed. All-in-all, Chace is a very healthy boy, and it shows.

Wand Type: Hazel and dragon heartstring, eleven inches, rather flexible. Celtic tree lore says that hazels have an eye for detail and like things to be a certain way, which fits with Chace rather well. As well, hazels are more into making the rules than playing by them, another characteristic which can be attributed to him.
Wand Expertise: It can perform jinxes and hexes with considerable ease.
Patronus: Fighting bull. They’re known for their aggression, vigour and strength.
Boggart: Failing at something, which will manifest itself into his little sister, Ashleigh, getting hurt and dying. He loves his sister, and she can’t really defend herself properly. Chace has always taken it upon himself to protect her, and if she died under his care, it would mean he failed to be the strong one and failed to protect her.

Personality:
Chace is a thrill-seeker and quite the dare-devil. He’s definitely an extremist when it comes to sports. The more dangerous, the better. His parents aren’t exactly pleased at this. They wouldn’t mind so much if the stunts he liked to pull were related to magic, but most? Yeah, most are Muggle sports. Though he doesn’t have the proper equipment, he has been known to grab a sled and start from the top of an icy, steep hill, and slide down head-first like in a make-shift skeleton race. He’d love to snowboard down an entire mountain slope starting from the peak one day. He loves rock-climbing, and though he’s only done it once, he’d gladly go windsurfing again. But as much as he loves extreme Muggle sports, he doesn’t have a lot of access to them. So, he’ll pull stupid tricks on his broom. Death-defying dives, eye-tearing speeds, anything dangerous, he’ll do it. He absolutely terrified his mother one day when he decided to actually stand and balance on his broom while it flew twenty feet in the air; he fell almost immediately and ended up breaking his collarbone, but it had been worth it for the thrill. Chace can and will put his own life in danger for the sake of adrenaline; one can almost call him a junkie. He’s not satisfied with sitting around idly while life goes by. He wants to be out there. He wants to be doing things. He wants to take chances, make mistakes, get messy. Chace wants to be the one to take the big risks. He will leap before he looks. He can be headstrong and foolhardy, and yes, he can get hurt. He’s well-aware of that. Chace knows that he can have a serious injury; he’s received several little ones in the past from the stupid stunts he pulls. But there’s no fun without the risk, he says. So long as no one else gets hurt in the process, why can’t he go out and have fun his own way?

There are many different types of strength, and Chace has a bit of each. He’s an extremely active, fit and physical boy. While he’s not really one to sit in a fitness centre and work out professionally (he can, though he finds it dreadfully boring), he does take care of himself. In summers, he likes to climb the rocks not far from his home, satisfying his needs for exercise and adrenaline. He swims often, both in the pool inside his house and in the large pond on the grounds. Though he prefers the more extreme Muggle sports, others interest him as well, especially the contact sports. He’s never played hockey, but if he did, he would certainly be the one body-checking the opposing team into the walls. He’d be tackling players all over the field in American football. Rugby is a secret love, since it’s so rough and in-your-face. And yes, he does love Quidditch. When it comes to athleticism, Chace is clearly strong, and rather aggressive.

Outside of physicality, he does have a certain degree of emotional strength. There is quite a bit of pressure from his parents for him to grow up to be a snobby high-class, respectable pureblood. His fascination with certain Muggle things is a great disappointment to them, a fact that they remind him of quite often, but he does his best to stay resilient. He can’t let the belittlement from his parents get him down. It’s not that bad anyway. It’s not like they insult him, they just think his choices are stupid or something. But no, Chace doesn’t let it affect him. He can’t, because he has responsibilities. He has a little sister to care for since no one else will and, on top of that, he likes being reliable. He likes the feeling of having other people depend on him for support. No, he’s not the most mature person out there, and he’s really not great at dishing out advice. But he likes being masculine, and with masculinity comes the thought that people think of him as the strong one for them to lean on when they need help. When it comes down to it, yes, he can have it in him to be sensitive to another person’s needs and emotions.

Genius, he is not. But Chace can admit that he loves a good jigsaw puzzle. He can’t sit at one for hours on end without getting immensely fidgety, so he’d have to take several breaks from it to get up and do something, but he loves to figure things out. Chace loves working and doing things with his hands, and puzzles engage his mind and keep his thoughts busy. As well, Chace has an immense fascination with Muggle artefacts, especially something that he can take apart into several little pieces to see how it works. Once he’s figured it all out, he’ll put it back together the same way. Or at least... as close as he can get to the same way, since sometimes when there are a whole bunch of little pieces he simply can’t remember where everything goes. When that happens, he does get frustrated, and often will lose his patience and toss the whole damn thing aside. On rare occasion he’ll take it apart again and start from scratch. He doesn’t add any charms or spells to enhance the device or “make it better”. Chace just wants to know how the hell Muggles get anything to work for them at all, and he wants to see things from the inside out. He’s absolutely fascinated with almost everything Muggles make. And god. He. Loves. Motorcycles. He doesn’t know what it is about them. He just. Loves them. He would absolutely love to have one, and he wouldn’t even take it apart to study it.

Yes, he does love puzzles, and he does love to figure things out. He can be exceptionally brainy when it comes to building things. Given that he will leap into a dangerous activity without fully thinking of the consequences, a person could say that he’s definitely not the smartest person around. Honestly, Chace would scoff at this. He’s fully aware of the risks he’s taking. He simply prioritises the rush of adrenaline over the worry about what could happen. When it comes to school, he’s an average student. He doesn’t slack off as he values his future too much to do so, but he doesn’t try harder than he has to either. Chace knows he’s not the most book-smart student in the school. He does his homework, but he doesn’t like studying. He can’t sit down at a desk and read for forty-five minutes, let alone an entire evening. He does what he has to in order to pass and have a decent record, and in his mind, he doesn’t need to do more than that.

Okay, he can admit it: Chace used to be a bit of a bully. He is a pureblood, and he hails from an extremely old and prejudiced bloodline. The feeling of contempt toward all Muggles, Muggle-borns and Squibs was all but drilled into him from birth by his parents. Chace was raised to believe that he was better than absolutely everyone else, and he took that pride with him when he first went to Hogwarts. Yes, he used to pick on Mudbloods Muggle-borns in his year, from knocking their books down to stealing their textbooks to calling them names. Fortunately, he’s grown up enough since then to have stopped his bullying; he’s too proud to apologise, but he’s nicer these days to his past... victims. While he no longer hates Muggles (because really, how can he when they make such awesome things?) or Muggle-borns or anything of the sort, he does still have an ego and he does set himself up on a higher pedestal than most. He’s no saint – far from it. He still can be very mean to people he doesn’t like, and he will get into a fight or duel with someone who pisses him off enough. These days he just holds back a bit more.

Every now and then, Chace can have sweet, romantic moments with a girl he likes. Yep. It’s true. Chace is a bit of a closet romantic. No, he doesn’t bust out poetry and sonnets and stand beneath a balcony and spew his affections to a girl he’s just met. He says that’s not romantic, that’s stupid and dramatic. ... His words, not mine. He doesn’t even flirt with a girl unless she flirts with him first. Chace prefers the little things. Holding hands with a girl is something he finds very affectionate, even intimate – even more so than kissing. Maybe it’s just because he likes working with his hands so much – oh, get your mind out of the gutter – but he just likes his hands wrapped around the hands of a girl who means something to him. He is the type of guy who’ll give his girlfriend little presents on random days. It’s not that he’s trying to buy her affections with material things. Chace is just... well, he’s not that creative when it comes to that sort of thing, really, so he just shows her that he cares the way he knows how.

There is a bit of a greedy side to Chace. It’s definitely not the most flattering characteristic to have, but one he possesses nonetheless. He’s not after the world, but he is spoiled and used to getting exactly what he wants, ever since he was a child. While he doesn’t throw a tantrum when he doesn’t get his way, he does tend to act like an ass. He’ll pout and snap at people needlessly and generally be very disagreeable. His touch of greed can lead to him being full of envy, as well, especially when it comes to girls. Envy leads to paranoia, paranoia leads to distrust, distrust leads to frustration... yeah, Chace can get stupid when his emotions get in the way. And, admittedly, he does like material things as well. He wants nice things, and lots of them. He’s a shopper and he likes to buy expensive items just for the fact that he can. If Chace wants something, he expects to get it.

Likes:
+ Guitar. Oh, god. He loves guitar with a mad passion. He’s completely self-taught, of course, since his parents weren’t about to pay a Muggle to teach their son anything. He can’t really read sheet music either, but he has a great ear for changes in pitch and can often match what he hears after a few tries.
+ Classic rock. Just another example of the amazing things Muggles make, right? Of course, it wasn’t exactly “classic” rock then, but technicality. He absolutely fanboys over The Who, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, Kansas, et cetera. He’s no singer by any means, but that doesn’t stop him from belting out the opening cry of “The Immigrant Song” with Robert Plant.
+ Holding hands. Oh, don’t give him crap about being sappy or anything. He likes to hold hands with his girlfriend because it’s intimate and soothing and close.
+ Motorcycles. Just another Muggle invention for him to fawn over, right? Really, though, Chace loves motorcycles. He wants to own a couple of them one day and ride them all the time.
+ His little sister. Ashleigh... is special. Really. Chace thinks it’s his responsibility to look after her, so that’s just what he does. And he likes it, even if Ashleigh doesn’t really comprehend all he does for her.
+ Rough-housing. Chace has a lot of pent-up energy and he can be quite aggressive; rough-housing with guy friends is a great release. Or, if he can, he’ll be a bit rougher in sports.
+ Taking risks. Or “being stupid”, if a person was to be extremely blunt about it. His daring stunts definitely can put his life at risk, though he is conscientious enough to try to make sure he’s the only one who can get hurt.
+ Baths. ... Don’t judge him. But he does admit that he likes soaking in a hot bath after a long day of running around. It’s not like he uses bubbles. ... Often.
+ Girls’ legs. Haha. Yeah, Chace is a leg man. He likes the length and curves and shape and smoothness and—haha. Er. Yeah. He likes legs.
+ Solving puzzles. Not just jigsaw puzzles. He considers taking apart Muggle things to be like a puzzle, and he likes the satisfaction of solving them by putting them back together correctly.
Dislikes:
– Prejudice. Okay... he’s not a “Muggle lover” by any means, but he realised how stupid hating someone just because of their blood was stupid when he was twelve. Why can’t adults grow up too?
– When pretty girls have image issues. Maybe it’s part of him being a (secret) romantic, but Chace likes to think there’s beauty in every girl. And when a girl doesn’t believe that she has any in herself? He actually gets sad and wants to help her to see it.
– Not getting his way. Well, come on. When you grow up as spoiled as Chace did, you expect things to happen when you want and how you want.
– Over-protectiveness. He knows that the things he likes to do are dangerous, but when his mother frets over silly things – like being “too rough” during Quidditch – he really starts to feel annoyed.
– Alcohol. He got drunk once, and was so sick the next morning he decided to never do it again. Besides, he hates the taste of alcohol. Why would he continue drinking when he doesn’t like it in the first place?
– His longer hair. It’s superficial, sure, but Chace hates the way his hair looks when it gets long. It gets curly, and unmanageable, and feminine, and it gets in the way and makes his head feel hot all over.
– Similar shades. Simple, really. He hates it when he can’t tell things apart. It confuses him and embarrasses him, especially if he messes something up because of it.
– Sitting still too long. He has a lot of energy and he gets antsy. He likes to be up, he likes to be doing things, he likes to be active instead of just bored and still in a classroom.
– Feeling emasculated. Chace is definitely a boy, and he hates being treated as anything other than male. He has nothing against women or girls at all, but he’s not one, and he doesn’t like being treated like he is.
– When his sister is bullied. Like mentioned before, he loves Ashleigh, and she can’t properly defend herself. It’s not fair for people to pick on her when it’s not her fault. She can’t help the way she is and she doesn’t understand, and it’s not right for people to be nasty to her for it.

History:

Giles Maier – father, pureblood, forty-six years old
Brigitte (Bushwick) Maier – mother, pureblood, forty-two years old
Nicolas Maier – brother, twenty-two years old
Brendan Maier – brother, twenty years old
Marissa Maier – sister, eighteen years old
Logan Maier – brother, sixteen years old
Ashleigh Maier – sister, thirteen years old

Giles Maier was not supposed to marry Brigitte Bushwick.

At least, not at first. He’d been betrothed from birth, but it had originally been to Clarice Bushwick – Brigitte’s elder sister. She was only a little younger than he, and their parents had been dead-set on marrying the children from the moment the mothers discovered they were pregnant. Elora Maier and Daena Bushwick had been friends since their days at Hogwarts, and since neither had a brother who was single and available for the other to marry, they decided that their kids would get married instead. They were elated when Elora learned she was to have a boy and Daena to have a girl only two months later. The friends launched into wedding plans, to the bemusement of their respective husbands. The Maiers and the Bushwicks were both old pureblood families, very respectable and very wealthy. Their children would certainly be a smart match. And Clarice was such a pretty little baby, too – no doubt she and Giles would make a handsome pair and produce their own beautiful, pureblood offspring. Elora and Daena continued to raise their families, Elora giving birth to twin girls two years later and Daena having another little girl two years after that. The Bushwicks and the Maiers were both living incredibly happy, prosperous lives, and they liked to think of themselves as on top of the world.

But... something was wrong. Giles and Clarice weren’t getting along like they were supposed to. They weren’t acting like children who would get married once they left Hogwarts and start their own family. It wasn’t that Giles didn’t play with Clarice. He was a very active and playful child, and had no problem at all getting along with other kids around his age. So what was wrong with him and Clarice? Elora and Daena hadn’t been excessively obvious in their pairing of them; the children wouldn’t know that they were betrothed until their teen years, at least. So they weren’t simply being rebellious, and besides, since when could five-year-olds rebel against arranged marriages, anyway? It didn’t make sense. Elora and Daena tried everything to put them together, even shut the two of them in a room with a bunch of toys for an hour to see if they’d play together, checking in every now and then to make sure they weren’t hurt. But nothing happened. They didn’t even speak to each other. And while Giles played with a toy wand and gleefully shot sparks at flies, Clarice went into her own corner to play with colourful blocks. She built amazing towers, sturdy and perfectly symmetrical, right down to colour coordination. It took Elora’s Healer sister, Elena Bulstrode, babysitting the children one day for them to realise that something wasn’t right with Clarice. She had watched Clarice stacking and ordering and lining things up the way a typical five-year-old shouldn’t be able to do, and she asked Daena how long she’d been doing that. “Since she was three” had been Daena’s reply, who hadn’t worried about it as she thought it indicated a particularly high intelligence. Elena had performed a few more tests, such as trying to hold Clarice, who began to wail and kick as though in great pain. Clarice had always been a quiet child, barely saying anything at all – she hadn’t even said her first word until she was sixteen months old – but again, Daena hadn’t worried. She thought it meant Clarice was simply a more thoughtful child and knew when to hold her tongue. Elena became more worried, and more certain, that what she thought could be wrong with Clarice was real. More tests and observations confirmed it: Clarice was autistic.

Daena was shocked, as was her husband. Clarice was autistic? They didn’t even know people who were magic could have such a disorder. They desperately asked Elena for a cure, but Elena sadly informed them that there was none... even in the magical world. Clarice would grow up to be autistic, and she would need special care and attention. Daena didn’t know what to do. And what about the engagement? Giles and Clarice had to be married, but they couldn’t have him marry her if she was... different. They had no other choice; heartbroken, Elora and Daena put an end to Giles and Clarice’s engagement. They had wanted their children to be married for so long that it seemed nothing but unfair for that future to be ripped away from them. They would often sit in silence while the children played around them, sighing about how utterly depressing life was when things didn’t go their way... when the answer became obvious to them.

Brigitte.

Why the hell hadn’t they seen it before? She certainly wasn’t autistic. There was no reason she couldn’t marry Giles. Their faith in humanity restored, Elora and Daena announced that Giles and Brigitte were officially betrothed. They continued with their happy lives, looking more and more forward to the wedding as the future Mr and Mrs Giles Maier grew closer and closer together. Despite the four-year age gap, the two got along splendidly, and seemed to have the easiest time falling in love. They needed no encouragement from their parents to go ahead with the wedding, which occurred just over a year after Brigitte graduated from Hogwarts. At last, the Maiers and the Bushwicks were joined – though Giles and Brigitte often joked with each other that their mothers had been more excited about the wedding than they were.

Years were flowing by. When Brigitte was twenty and Giles twenty-four, she gave birth to their first child: a boy, Nicolas Giles Maier. Even from an early age, he was an exceptionally creative lad. He responded well to classical music that Brigitte often played around the mansion, and he drew pictures and sang at the top of his lungs. He was a talented kid, though extremely shy, speaking very little around strangers. Two years after he was born, Brendan Jasper Maier joined the family. Like Nicolas, he was a quiet one, though he was more analytical and into things he could prove rather than creative and into things he could make. After another two years, Brigitte gave birth to her first daughter, Marissa Danielle Maier. The most ambitious of the Maier children thus far, Marissa wanted to be the best to prove herself to her big brothers that she didn’t need them babying her so much. She was very competitive, and quite an athlete, participating in Quidditch whenever she could. Logan Joshua Maier came two years after she did, and he too was athletic and competitive, but to a more serious degree than Marissa. By this time, Brigitte had four children to look after and was quite exhausted; she was ready to be done having children, but Giles did all but beg her for “just one more”. Brigitte did sort-of want another girl, so she agreed. Logan was just a year old when, on August 12th, Chace Morgan Maier – another boy – was born. Brigitte did her best to hide her disappointment, though it was clear that she’d had her heart set on a baby girl. Still, he was her baby boy, and she loved him the way she loved all of her children. And she and Giles considered themselves to be blessed: all five children appeared to be magic, and none were autistic.

Chace was just over a year old when Brigitte told Giles she wanted to try one more time for another girl. It was a decision she’d weighed in her mind for months, but the disappointment she felt when she had another boy instead of a girl stayed with her and she longed for another daughter. Marissa was a bit of a tomboy, and Brigitte wanted a daughter she could put in dresses and showcase as a little princess. So, she and Giles tried once more. And she got pregnant, and this time, she felt certain that it was a girl.

It was while she was pregnant that Chace had his accident. Brigitte was enjoying the sun while her children played out in front of the mansion; Giles was working at the Ministry, in the Department of International Magical Cooperation, and the midwife was inside the mansion, preparing Brigitte’s prenatal potions, leaving Brigitte alone to watch over the children. Nicolas and Brendan flew around on toy broomsticks, their toes barely grazing the ground, Marissa chased after them and demanded to ride one too, and Logan was busy near a shallow puddle, counting the minnows that swam beneath the surface. Chace had been walking for a few months, and he was already starting to show his dare-devil side. He liked to try to climb to high locations, such as the backs of couches, even bookshelves... and the small rock formation outside by the pond. Brigitte had assumed he was with his brothers and sister, but after a few moments of watching them, she realised he was missing. She hollered for the midwife, who came running immediately. While Brigitte, who couldn’t really move much with how large her stomach was, stayed put to watch the other children, the midwife scoured the grounds for Chace. She found him – just as he started to fall from the rock he was trying to climb. She whipped out her wand and managed to slow his fall just in time: he still hit his head hard on the ground below, but he was alive. Chace was wailing at the top of his lungs and rushed to St. Mungo’s right away. Terrified for his son, Giles rushed to St. Mungo’s the moment he received news that Chace was there. The midwife was sent home to watch the other children while Brigitte found her own way to St. Mungo’s. The Healers worked quickly to ensure that Chace would be okay; there was minor bleeding on his head, as well as some bruises along his side, but to the immense relief of Giles and Brigitte, it appeared that he would be fine. He had a mild concussion, and the Healers kept him at St. Mungo’s for a couple days for observations, but he looked to be okay. The midwife had stopped his fall just in time. He was okay, and now Brigitte knew that a closer eye had to be kept on her adventurous little boy.

It was barely a month after that that Brigitte went into labour. And this time, they got their girl: Ashleigh Brigitte Maier. She was a beautiful little blondie, with the biggest brown eyes Brigitte had ever seen a baby have. Brigitte absolutely adored her daughter, dressing her up in frilly pink dresses and taking her everywhere she went and treating her like a princess. But it became clear very early on that Ashleigh was not like her other children. She didn’t seem to be developing the way all the others had. For one thing, she seemed to be very sensitive to noise. For another, she rarely made eye contact. She didn’t imitate expressions or even respond to them the way the other children had. Brigitte knew something was wrong with her daughter, but she vehemently denied it. There was nothing wrong with her little princess. There couldn’t be. She was perfect. She was the daughter that Brigitte had been wanting for years. There absolutely could not be a problem with her.

A visit from Daena confirmed Brigitte’s fears. Daena recommended that Ashleigh be examined right away, recognising the same symptoms she’d seen in Clarice. It took some time, but when Ashleigh was old enough for it to be declared official, Brigitte and Giles received the news: Ashleigh was diagnosed with autism. On top of that, she was a Squib. Brigitte’s heart nearly broke. Her daughter, her baby, her princess... an autistic Squib. Oh, no, that couldn’t happen. It couldn’t be leaked out that the Maiers had a Squib in the family, let alone an autistic one. They had to hide her from the world. It was made clear that none of the children were to talk about Ashleigh to anyone. If word got out, who knew what consequences the family could suffer? They had a very respectable status in the wizarding world, one that they’d spent generations working to achieve. They couldn’t throw that away, nor could they have it snatched away from them. They had to hide her. And so, when they were alone inside the mansion, they treated her as they would any other child, with a nanny living with them to help them when things got rough and hard to handle. When they had visitors, the nanny would take her to a separate area and keep her there until the guests left. The children never spoke of her, thoughtlessly obeying their parents. Though, as the years passed, Chace began to develop a protective attachment to his little sister. Brendan sometimes called her horrifically offensive names, and Chace would get angry and tell him to shove off. He began to think of himself as Ashleigh’s guardian, a label he wore with pride.

While Brigitte seemed to be slowly adjusting to having her baby girl be a secret, Giles seemed to be succumbing to the pressure. He began to stay out late after work on weekends, going to bars and pubs – even Muggle ones – and he began to gamble. It didn’t take long for him to become addicted. And Brigitte had absolutely no idea. Giles was slowly draining the Maier Gringotts vault. Brigitte was a shopper, unknowingly making the situation all the worse. The Maiers had once been incredibly wealthy... and by the time Chace received his Hogwarts letter, they were almost completely bankrupt. Giles was starting to sink into debt, and he was careful to keep everything a secret – both from the wizarding world, and from his wife. He owed goblins more money than he had. By this time, each child had more money in their trust funds than Giles and Brigitte did in their joint vault. Giles was getting desperate.

Desperate enough to approach the Muggle mafia.

Giles had had one confidante at work, someone he trusted enough to admit his gambling addiction to. Even though he never mentioned financial trouble, his colleague figured that the Maiers were having major debt issues. His suggestion was to talk to “a friend of a friend of a friend”... or something along those lines. Evidently this “friend” was part of an organisation that dealt with money – and it was a Muggle who ran it. Muggles were stupid and easily Confunded; Giles could get what he needed and run. At first, Giles had been enthusiastic about the idea. Muggles were stupid, after all. He could borrow what he needed – hell, he could borrow more – and Confund the don and no one would have a clue. And so he took his colleague’s advice: he met with a loan shark of the De Luca crime family. He took out a loan amounting to 5000 Galleons, which was barely enough to pay off all his gambling debt. Really, he’d just wait for the loan shark to ask for the money back, and he’d Confund him and all of his problems would disappear. At least, that was the plan. But when a person deals with organised crime, he can’t just expect all of his problems to be eliminated after cutting out one person. After he Confunded that loan shark, another came after him to demand the money he owed. And another after that one. Giles began to realise that it didn’t matter how many men he Confunded: he couldn’t escape the mafia, and he owed them money that he didn’t have. He began to fear them – fear Muggles, of all people – and tried to avoid them. That didn’t work. So, of course, Giles needed a warning.

Thus, Liam Donnelly beat the shit out of Giles Maier.

... No, really.

In the previous summer, a short time after Giles borrowed the money, Giles was sent a message to meet with his loan shark at some dingy little Muggle rest stop on an old, remote road just outside of London. Not wanting to be in more trouble for not showing up, Giles agreed. When he got there, of course, it wasn’t his loan shark that was waiting for him. It was Liam Donnelly. The beating happened fast: one moment Giles was looking at Liam curiously, and the next, he was on the ground while his face was being pounded into the dirt. Giles was spurting blood out of his face and was certain he swallowed a tooth. He was more afraid than he’d ever been in his life; reaching for his wand to perform magic never even occurred to him. Liam continued to punch, to kick, to pound, to do cause more pain than Giles thought he was capable of experiencing – and then after a quick “Get that money to the don, now,” he was gone, leaving Giles dazed and alone and bloody. Without caring if Liam was still around to see, Giles Apparated home, where Brigitte promptly took care of his wounds and Giles finally confessed to her the truth. At first, Brigitte had been furious, even threatened to leave him, but in the end decided that she loved her husband and the children all needed a father. But how the hell were they going to pay back De Luca? The last of their savings didn’t even cover the interest. The children all had more money—

And there it was: the answer, staring them straight in the face. Ashleigh. Her trust fund had been set up since birth. She would never need it, would she? They didn’t have to feel bad about dipping into it to get them out of debt. Besides, once they had the money, they could put it back in, right? Satisfied that this was the right option, they took the money from her vault, exchanged it to Muggle currency, and Giles, feeling like the world’s worst human being father, handed it over to his loan shark. Feeling a great release, Giles silently vowed to get his act together and to never do this to his family again. Only there was a slight problem: it wasn’t enough. With the interest being so high, Ashleigh’s trust fund hadn’t covered all of what Giles owed. And the longer he waited to pay it back, the more money he owed the don. He was in deep, deep shit. Not knowing what else to do, he broke the news to Nicolas – who, by that time, was twenty-one years old and married – and asked him for help. Nicolas shook his head, saying that he’d gotten himself into this mess. He had to get himself out. He cut ties from his parents, only writing to his siblings every now and then to keep in touch. Brendan helped a little, sparing what money he could, but nothing ever seemed to be enough. They were getting desperate enough to steal another trust fund.

They’d have to go for Chace next. It made sense. He was the youngest, next to Ashleigh. They’d have more time to fill it. Besides... he was a bit of an embarrassment himself.

Despite Giles’s dealings with Muggles, the Maiers had been raised to sneer down at them and see them as completely inferior. The word “Mudblood” was used more often than “Muggle-born”, and none of the children had befriended anyone of dirty blood at school. The Maiers were proud of their children for making the right decisions. Chace was just as spoiled and nasty in his first year and a half at Hogwarts as any other pureblood, prejudiced bully. But he didn’t really know why. They were magic too, right? So what if their parents weren’t. Sure, Muggles weren’t as good as wizards at anything, but they were obviously smart enough to figure out how to live without magic. And they really did have the coolest things, too. Chace could spend hours looking inside a calculator and taking it all apart to see how it worked. And then there was the music. Oh dear, sweet Merlin, rock music. Chace had never heard anything remotely like it in his life. And the guitar... holy mother of god, he needed one of those. Using his own money, he bought himself a guitar and taught himself to play by closely listening and copying what he heard. He bought records and a record player, listening almost obsessively to The Who, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, and other rock artists famous in those years. The long and short of it, really, was that Muggles made really friggin’ amazing things, and prejudice over something like how much magic was in a person’s blood was just as stupid as prejudice over race or religion or gender or something. Just like that, his needless bullying stopped. No, he wasn’t leading the crusade to support Muggles and Muggle-born rights and privileges. He wasn’t a do-gooder or anything. He just... treated them the same way he treated purebloods and half-bloods. They were all people, so why be stupid and hate for no reason? At least, that was his view, something that Giles and Brigitte sneered upon and really didn’t need to stress over on top of everything else, especially since it was a Muggle that was screwing them over. So they ignored it.

Except... well... maybe his Muggle obsession was a good thing. They wouldn’t have to feel so bad about dipping into his vault, right? And they’d only take what they needed, which really was barely a quarter of what was in there. But still... he was their son, and he would need his trust fund one day. They couldn’t do it. Giles would just have to continue paying off The Winemaker with whatever money he could spare from his job. Meanwhile, the Maiers continue to keep up the pretence that they are one of the riches pureblood families around. Nicolas and Brendan are the only children who have any idea of financial trouble, and Chace continues his school days at Hogwarts, listening to his rock music, playing his guitar, watching out for Ashleigh in the summer, and doing everything he can to live each day to the fullest.

Sample Post: Please see a post for Milo Whittle, Imogen Sauveterre, Sam Raisz or Wendy Palmer.

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{ C O N T R A C T }

I solemnly swear that I, Didi, have read the rules, understand clearly what my responsibilities are now that I am joining ISS, and will abide by these standards set by the staff.

[Lily Evans]

accepted !