(for my own sanity: fc is colin ford)

PERSONALITY
Sammy is shy. He tends to remain withdrawn and hesitant, rarely speaking out of turn and following rules to the best of his ability. Mostly, this is because this whole "magic school" business is severely overwhelming and he seriously needs some time to get used to it.

However, once his initial shock has been overcome, Samandriel still isn't a social butterfly of a boy. He doesn't think that his interests are very interesting, and is usually hesitant to share them with others. He strongly dislikes rigorous magic that requires precision, preferring more emotional and individual pursuits. He has a solid grasp of how electronics work because of his middle sister's interest in them, but this knowledge isn't very impressive to most students at Hogwarts -- or so he's noticed. Books also don't greatly appeal to him, as he much prefers for things to be read aloud or to learn hands-on.

Largely he finds some of the customs of the wizarding world pedantic (like writing with quills and parchment instead of normal pens) and he especially dislikes purebloods who stick their noses in the air at him. While he might be brave enough to speak up about bullying one day, for now he just keeps his head down and avoids drawing too much attention to himself. Samandriel follows the rules and does as he's told -- not that he's very happy about it all.

Ultimately he probably wants to help people, since both of his parents have raised him to be empathetic. He isn't good with his hands like Maeve or logic like Siobhan, but the opportunities magic presents are numerous and he's sure that he can figure out something in the long run. He's only eleven -- no need to plan out his life story just yet, even if Siobhan started when she was nine.


HISTORY

Daniel and Mary O'Brian were pretty normal people. Mary was a lawyer and Daniel a nurse, meaning that the pair of them weren't around all that often but had plenty of money to throw at babysitters. Not that they didn't adore their children, but they adored their jobs just as much. Samandriel did, however, have two older sisters -- the eldest was Maeve, cool and level-headed with a similar temperament to their mother who liked to write, and the middle child was Siobhan, a tech-savvy girl who was obsessed with picking apart machinery and putting it back together. He was never quite lonely, and his sisters were happy to string him along if they needed someone to bounce ideas or experiments off of, but largely Samandriel preferred to keep to himself.

His notable first instance of accidental magic occurred... well, by accident. He'd been about seven years old playing with a stray cat he'd found in his front garden when he happened to think to himself how fun it would be if there were a tiger instead, and the white cat promptly turned into an orange tabby. Not necessarily a tiger, but still startling enough to the both of them that Samandriel wondered if he had done it (the cat changed back by the time he was finished freaking out, leaving him to wonder if he'd imagined it in the first place).

Similar things happened throughout his rather uneventful life -- he'd be looking for a TV remote when it would suddenly be exactly in a place he'd already looked just behind him, or a light would flicker when he was in a sour mood, or Maeve's contraptions would seem to rewire themselves when he was cross with her.

A few days after his eleventh birthday, a fancy letter was delivered to his home addressed to him along with a representative from the school to address any questions his family might have had. First there was shouting and threats to call the police, because his mother was sure this was an elaborate scheme to kidnap him. Then there were interrogations by Siobhan, who really didn't like the idea of her little brother being whisked off to the Scottish Highlands, not to mention that she didn't believe wizards were real. His father had just finished working a twenty-hour shift and largely didn't have anything to say beyond "What?" every few minutes. But by the end of the day, his family had largely accepted that this was real and not going away, so he promptly began preparations.

After all, what eleven year old doesn't dream of being special?


APPEARANCE

Samandriel is a small boy. This is unusual, since most of his family is very tall, but his mother insists that he'll hit his growth spurt by the time he's a teenager, so that's at least a little bit encouraging. He has a tendency to shy away from pictures, but he does have a nice smile. Along with his sister Maeve, he inherited his father's dark hair, but both of his parents and sisters have dark eyes. He gets freckles in the summer, and tends to carry himself as if he's trying to retreat like a snail into his shell.

He generally doesn't like being noticed and tends to stick to the edges of a room, swallowed up in robes a size or two too big to allow him room to grow. His things are nice, since his parents can afford to make them nice, but they've also never been people to splurge so everything he has is perfectly to standard -- no more, no less.