Jaime Vardy II | Gryffindor | First Year

Jaime Vardy II | Gryffindor | First Year

Reducio

Jaime Vardy II looks every bit the son of his father; from his long, pointed chin and pale English complexion to his brilliant blue eyes and signature messy golden hair. Though Jaime supports a slender, lanky frame, don’t let this fool you -- he is as athletic and coordinated as any child his age and more so than most.

Reducio

Jaime thought he had it all growing up. A renowned professional footballer father, an affluent lifestyle and an abundance of friends. His life was easy and fit him better than his overpriced designer clothes. However, after receiving an unexpected visit by a peculiar man insisting to be, not only a wizard, but a professor from some preposterous place called Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry -- suddenly his life was flipped on its head.

There was an underground wizarding community, Jaime learned from the oddly dressed man, and he was being offered the chance to become a part of it, should he choose to do so. But in doing so, he would be forced to relinquish his position at the top of the sociocultural hierarchy and plummet to the very bottom of this new secret one. The fact that he was born to two non-magical parents meant that he was a 'muggle-born', he was told, a status that many ‘pure-blooded’ witches and wizards often looked down on as beneath them.

Considering this fact, Jaime found himself torn. The thought of being a real-life wizard was wildly appealing, but was it really worth leaving his world and everything he knew behind? In this world he was already someone; someone admired and admonished (even if this had little to do with his own accomplishments). He could skate by in this life without a care in the world. It was the path of least resistance to be sure. Surely he would have to be mad to give that up… wouldn’t he?

If he chose the wizarding path, his journey would be arduous and filled with struggle. He would be completely alone for the first time in his life. No one would care who he was or who his father was. He would have to forge his own path… and yet… wouldn’t it make him a coward to refuse? Perhaps it could even be refreshing to grow into his own person, instead of being defined as ‘Jaime Vardy’s son.’

The decision nagged at him for months until, on the day of his eleventh birthday, the chickens came home to roost and he was forced to make a definitive decision. It would be an adjustment unlike anything he’d ever experienced -- in more ways than one -- but after an inspiring pep-talk from his father, who encouraged him to be brave and seize an opportunity that others could only dream of, Jaime resolved to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He could be brave. He would be brave. No longer would he be known as 'Jaime Vardy's son.' No, from now on he would be Jaime Vardy II -- a thought that both terrified and excited him.

Reducio

Jaime’s first instance of magic came on the pitch of a youth football match. After the volunteer referee disallowed a brilliantly struck goal of his for offsides, Jaime fiercely began to argue. When the ref did not budge in his opinion, Jaime’s anger overwhelmed him. As he stood leering at the man, suddenly there was a loud ‘crack’ and the older man was sent hurtling backward, halfway across the pitch, where he landed on his back in dazed bewilderment. Jaime hadn’t known this had been his doing until he received a mysterious visitor…

Reducio

‘It’s real…’ went the constant refrain playing inside Jaime’s head as he gazed around incredulously at his surroundings. Hearing about the school from a recruitment delegate had been one thing, but experiencing it in person was something else entirely. The entrance hall of Hogwarts was massive, bathed in the flickering light of countless flaming torches, and its ceiling was so high Jaime couldn’t even see it. Perhaps its most impressive feature, however, was a magnificent marble stairway that looked as if it would lead all the way up to heaven if one had the will to climb high enough.

From somewhere that sounded very far away, like the end of a long tunnel, Jaime was vaguely aware that an adult was addressing him and his fellow herd of first years. Something about huffing and puffing while slithering into a griffin door? And a raven? Somehow a raven was involved in this process as well? None of it made the slightest bit of sense to Jaime, but then again he was hardly paying attention. All of this was overshadowed by the fact that magic was real… Hogwarts was real… and he was now here.

It wasn’t until he was bumped in the back by a nervous looking boy with red hair that he realized they were being organized into a single file line and herded forward once again. Suddenly panic began to bubble up in his chest. Why hadn’t he paid attention when the instructor had been speaking? What if he couldn’t slither through the griffin door? Would he be sent home? And the raven… he had absolutely no idea what to do when the raven appeared…

Jaime craned his neck to ask the ginger-haired boy behind him, but upon seeing that the boy looked more likely to soil his pants than coherently answer any sort of question he might ask, Jaime sighed and looked away. ‘Don’t look back,’ he thought to himself. ‘You’re not going that way.’

Onward he marched, though his legs were beginning to feel more and more as though they were made of jelly, through a pair of wide double doors and into a long, rectangular room — and then he swallowed hard. There were four long tables, each of which seated what looked like hundreds of older students. Jaime could feel the heat of their stares and blinked nervously as the line came to a halt in the middle of the room. At the front of the line stood a four-legged stool upon which sat a musty, decrepit-looking pointed hat. The wide-eyed raven-haired girl at the front of the line arched her back, leaning away from it fearfully as if she thought it might leap forward and throttle her at any moment.

The hat did not throttle her, but did, in Jaime’s eyes, something equally astonishing. One of the deep, sagging wrinkles opened like a mouth and that hat began to sing. Screwing up his face in concentration, Jaime listened hard this time, taking in every word the … hat … said. And by the time it finished, he felt a wave of relief spread through him. All he would have to do was wear the disgusting hat for a few moments, that wasn’t so bad…right? Exhaling smoothly, he ruffled his hair mindlessly and waited for his turn.

“Vardy, Jaime!” A voice called out what felt like an eternity later. And then, after taking a steadying deep breath, he stepped forward to sit down on the stool and placed the hat atop his head.

“GRYFFINDOR!” The hat cried to a roar of tumultuous applause from one of the tables to his left. With a coy grin, Jaime yanked off the hat, placed it back down on the stool and then scampered over to join the Gryffindor table.