Vincent d'Arque is a tall, slim built boy with dirty blond, long locks, steel blue eyes and a fair complexion. Being born on August the 18th 2008 in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland he grew up as the only child in a one-parent family. He had led a rather solitary life up until the day he was invited to Hogwarts. His father, a rugged, big, strong man called Connor d’Arque had owned a traditional Scottish whiskey distillery, Glendith Distillery. He died in a tragic accident while hiking in the Austrian Alps only months after Vincent had been born. His mother Maria, a Dutch-born, tall, slim woman with long blonde hair, worked as an editor-in-chief for a major newspaper. Although she earned more than enough money to provide him with all his material needs, she wasn't around much, something that Vincent never blamed her for. The moments she was around she did all she could to raise Vincent into a good, well-mannered young man. Having to mostly rely on himself, Vincent developed into an independent, thoughtful yet bright lad with a strongly developed personal view on the world and the goals he wants to achieve in it.  Rather than pleasing people for the wrong reasons he chooses to be honest and direct, which is not always valued by others, getting him into trouble from time to time.

Even at only 11 years of age he is a devoted photographer, there’s nothing he likes more than grab his camera and simply go out on a hike to try and find whatever scene worth capturing he encounters, be it a landscape or the simple beauty of a dragonfly drying its wings in the sun on a blade of grass. When he is not out in the field with his camera, he spends many hours in a comfortable seat in his room reading, making up and writing stories or books, preferably with some good music to go along. He’s not overly athletic, but he does jog a few miles three times a week just to keep in shape. He does not have many true friends, he never felt the need for more than a few anyway, but the two best friends he has, Mia May and William Bear would take a bullet for him, just as he would for them. The three of them share the same interests, making them virtually inseparable and never far apart. They even live within a few hundred yards from each other. School is not exactly Vincent’s most favored pastime, he considers it a necessary evil which he in no way could avoid or skip. Although his grades are above average he fails to see the point in learning all the general, in his eyes useless subject matter that is thrown his way in school. He prefers researching things himself, which allows him to study only what piques his interest in any way. His interests span a wide range of subjects, from philosophy to mystery. Oddly enough, despite his far-reaching interest in the world’s mysteries, he never showed any interest in magic or wizardry. Until that day in December 2018 that is.

That day, it was Friday the 21st, his honesty got him in trouble and that trouble turned out to be the trigger to his first magical experience. It was late in the afternoon as he found himself engaged in a fierce discussion with one of his classmates about stealing candy. The classmate in question, a not-so-close friend called Norman Magoo, wanted Vincent to take part in a scheme to steal candy from Rita’s Sweets, the local candy store. Norman was caught skipping classes by owner Rita, who had called it in to the principal, despite Norman begging her not to. The principal was not amused, resulting in Norman getting detention for two weeks and on top of that the principal informed his parents who gave him a whole month of house arrest. Norman felt he was treated way too harshly with this and wanted revenge on Rita for ratting him out. His plan was to confront Rita, thus starting a distracting discussion which provided a few other boys, one of which was supposed to be Vincent, the opportunity to fill their pockets with candy from the store.

Vincent strongly rejected,  which angered Norman so much he wanted to start a fistfight. The moment he raised his fist ready to strike, Vincent recoiled and all of a sudden found himself engulfed in some sort of semi-opaque white light. It seemed as if time itself slowed down. Vincent, who strangely enough seemed to be able to move at normal speed, caught a glimpse of movement to his right. He looked towards it and he saw a cat, that had lazily sat in the sun beside the road, go into a frenzy for no apparent reason. The frenzied cat shot away, sprinting purposefully towards Norman and when it came within two feet of him it leaped up and jumped against him, hitting him right in the middle of his left upper leg. The impact, though not particularly powerful, staggered Norman enough to cause him to miss his punch. As soon as the cat had hit Norman the light faded away in a heartbeat and the world around Vincent started turning at the right speed again.

The cat landed on its four paws, cast an intense glance at Vincent, turned and walked provokingly slow back to the sunny spot where it had been before. It turned a few times to find the right position, sat itself back down and began a grooming session as if nothing happened. Confused Vincent looked at Norman who was staring at his fists as if he had no idea what he had been doing, let alone what had just taken place. He looked at Vincent with a puzzled look on his face, relaxed his fists, wished Vincent a good evening and walked away. Vincent only once dared to ask Norman about the incident, and Norman seemed sincere as he told his version of what had happened: He had intended to ask Vincent to join in the scheme but just as he met up with him and wanted to persuade him into it, he suddenly and for no apparent reason realized the punishment was actually well-deserved and his own fault which made him decide to give up on the entire plan, ashamed it had even formed in his mind. That’s why he left right away. He claimed he had not seen a cat. Vincent of course knew that was not how it went down but he had no logical or satisfying explanation for what had actually happened, so he decided to leave it at that. The only thing he could think of that would, no might explain all this was magic, and, despite the fact he thought it a pretty far-fetched concept, from that day on magic and wizardry had become one of his most favored subjects.