Physical Description:
River is both a well spoken and well groomed child. Though having a slight build be does not appear overly fragile. His white blonde hair is neatly trimmed to short back and sides style more reminiscent of the 1950’s than modern times. This gives his angular features a defined and sharp appearance and draws attention to the pale blue of his eyes. Despite his youth, his features rarely express emotion. When reading he is known to wear glasses.

Mental Description:
River is commonly described as stoic. While not without emotion he is well versed in containing and controlling his emotions in order to evaluate his situation and be more decisive. He is not one to draw upon imagination but rather to utilize objectivity and rationality in his approach to the world. Though not easily befriended, he is both a loyal and reliable friend to those few who break through his barriers. Drawn to calmer environments he can be sensitive to stress and is somewhat a perfectionist with an application of mind that can only be chalked up as determined ambition.

Biography:
River was the surprise seventh child of the Murdstone family. A long running pureblood lineage, his closest sibling had graduated from Hogwarts only months before his arrival. While he was somewhat of a shock to a family who had been expecting an empty nest, he was no less loved nor wanted than any of his siblings. Being the youngest child of all adult siblings he was a little spoiled with affection and gifts for the first two years of his life.

The year that River turned three marked a time of absolute change for the family. That was the year that his eldest sister was hexed in a particularly nasty encounter whilst working as an Auror. At first it was thought that with a little time and care she would recover. The re-introduction of a sibling back into the house had not gone smoothly. River had been used to being in his eyes ‘an only child’. Siblings were people who visited with gifts and playtime adventures. A hexed sibling however, drew his mother’s attention away and made him feel excluded and abandoned. Such harsh feelings culminated one day in an almost devastating tantrum from the then toddler.

River had been in the kitchen with his mother, attempting to garner her attention, and not understanding that mixing magical remedies required all of her attention, had a meltdown. The pure emotional force of his frustrations culminated in the fireplace roaring an inferno of flame up the chimney and sent knifes, pans, plates and silverware zooming about the room in a frightening display of accidental magic.

After this incident, it was decided that it would benefit everyone if River was sent to stay with his Great Aunt Agnes while the sister was cared for by Mother. The elderly witch had no qualms in taking the toddler, and so it was that River was sent to stay Mistwood Farm with his Great Aunt for a two week stay.

No matter how one plans, life is always unpredictable and often messy. At least in the eyes of the Murdstone family. Those two short weeks turned to a month, then to another month and before anyone saw it happening, a year followed by another year. Great Aunt Agnes, despite her many decades, had found a sense of peace and enjoyment in the process of sloughing off spinster life and donning a mother’s apron. She found it re-invigorating to be needed by someone on a true reliance level. She seemed to drop decades of age from her face as she engaged with her new charge and a bond between the two blossomed as joyfully as a garden in spring.

River, for his part, never felt any abandonment, nor did he feel punished for his tantrum. Great Aunt Agnes was wonderful and her house was an adventure. His parents often visited, sent owls with letters and gifts and took him out on adventurous trips to interesting places such as the zoo. As time marched forward their visits became less frequent but River was also growing and becoming more involved with his own interests and responsibilities, leaving him no time to dwell on could or should be notions. His Great Aunt taught him emotional control. Her strict, but loving ways, nurtured a stoic self reliance in her young charge that curtailed further fits of emotion.

When he turned five, his Aunt proposed sending him to the small local school near to her cottage. While a muggle school the family had never held any prejudices against those without magic, indeed most members were involved in protecting those without magic from those with. In order to enrol the boy it was necessary for Agnes to adopt River and give him a ‘muggle identity’ much like her own local persona. This meant changing his family name to his Aunt’s chosen muggle name of Walker. Aunt Agnes had, for years, lived in a small village, surrounded by those without magic and had many years before, chosen a muggle surname to better assimilate. She had always likened it to the changes foreigners had made to their names in order to make their life easier in their new country.

River loved many aspects of school. Reading, writing, mathematics, sciences, all of these things he enjoyed. Only one aspect of his time in a muggle school did River not like and that was hiding the truth about his Aunt. It was difficult to keep such a giant secret from his friends. His Aunt grew fantastical plants and nurtured creatures that muggles thought imaginary on her little farm. Fortunately those very few times he had let anything slip it had been when he was still very young and all had been chalked up to imagination and childish play.

During the day he would go to school and of an afternoon he would return home to the chores of his Aunt’s small farm. Agnes provided potioneers and wand maker’s a like with magical ingredients and byproducts of her menagerie. She also used herbal knowledge for those in the village who sought her out. Some calling her the white witch of Mistwood never knowing how close to the truth they were. It was for those muggles, a fairy tale, a little romanticism and no more.

Every year the farm grew a little as Agnes purchased adjoining farmland and set much of it to the regrowth of forest or lake expansion where her creatures would feel more at home and hiding her tilled land with a natural barrier. Along with her farming, Agnes ran a farm stay on her grounds in a pretty little cottage that stood well away from her own. The cottage not only explained her income to the locals but also justified the way she managed to purchase more land.

The year he received his acceptance letter to Hogwarts, was the first that his Aunt’s friend chose not to rent the small cottage. The family had been visiting the farm for decades. A friendship between Agnes and a great grandmother had begun the traditional vacation at Agnes’ farm-stay. This meant that it was the first year since turning eight, that he would not spend the summer months with their daughter, his best and only true friend.

First Instance of Magic:
From above -
River had been in the kitchen with his mother, attempting to garner her attention, and not understanding that mixing magical remedies required all of her attention, had a meltdown. The pure emotional force of his frustrations culminated in the fireplace roaring an inferno of flame up the chimney and sent knifes, pans, plates and silverware zooming about the room in a frightening display of accidental magic.

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