Professor Patchwork

## Academic and Professional Career

Professor Patchwork is the students favorite substitute teacher and his tendency to drink in class and seldom get caught is no small reason for this popularity. He is also willing to take on the students dares in exchange for good behavior by the class.

Cool and collected in class, Patchwork has a surprising amount of skill in multiple subjects, allowing him to effectively substitute in multiple areas, but he most enjoys teaching about magical creatures.

Professor Patchwork is not one for Duels or wizarding fights, when it comes to the point of having to be involved in such things he does use the strongest spells at his disposal.

## Background and Personal Life

Patch grew up in a pure-blooded home with his mother, a painter, his father, an Auror, and his two older brothers. Tension among the family members was always high, and because of his lack of proficiency in magic throughout his youth, he didn't get along well with the males in his family, and mostly just stuck to his mother's side.

When he was roughly around eight or nine, his father had been slipped a dosage of a potion in his liquor, one that had made him incredibly irritable and prone to violence. When Elian went to confront him after arriving home one evening, things quickly went downhill and Elian was severely injured. As a result, when the potion effects wore off and his mind cleared, his father freaked out and called in a family friend who was proficient at healing spells. The only problem was that, due to the severity of the spell, some of the areas of his wounds we're irreparably damaged, leaving him notably scarred and numb in some places.

Not knowing what to do with the child, his parents agreed to temporarily lock him up in his room, where he painted and studied and remained indoors, away from the outside world, remaining where nobody could see him. The few exceptions to this were family events, in which he was forced to wear a mask and bandages to hide the scarring on his face and neck, and long-sleeved clothing for ones located elsewhere on his body.

Eventually, his eleventh birthday rolled around and he got accepted into Hogwarts, which revived a new hope amongst the pure-blood family. They thought that, although Elian making an appearance in public was risky, it was worth it for him to go to the school if it meant him being able to improve in his magical ability. A few conditions were met, a few deals struck, and Elian was allowed to attend his first years at Hogwarts.

Upon arrival, Elian had made a few good friends and been sorted into Slytherin, unlike his brothers, who were unwittingly sorted into Ravenclaw in the years prior to him attending. Things began to look up for the young wizard, up until someone started to spread rumors about him and his family, only a fraction of which he and his brothers would be able to combat and turn away.

In his second year, he fell in love with a young Ravenclaw, a first-year, and asked her out. Not knowing or affected by his rumors, they accepted, and the two began to date. Come the time of the dance, the two went together, only for some of the upperclassmen to ruin it all by feeding the innocent girl some rumors and lies, telling her he was dangerous, unpredictable, that he'd hurt her if he got the chance, and other horrible things. She didn't buy into it at first, but after a bit of poking and prodding, the upperclassmen got Elian to lash out violently.
Unable to control his magic properly, he ended up injuring a student more than he'd originally intended, having not even imagined his spell would work. The dance was cancelled, and the the girl broke it off with him, horrified. Tears in his eyes, he was dragged away to be scolded, reprimanded, and punished accordingly. He didn't talk to the girl after that, not even when she tried to mend things.

The following year, Patch returned to school... Different. It was that year his mask was stolen by a student, and the one where he was least affected by the behavior of the other students. He was more cool and composed, uncaring and more determined than ever to prove himself to his family. He stood up to people messing with him, or just straight-up ignored them, his expression blank, apathetic, much like the one his mother would wear. It was also this year that he was chased out into the forbidden forest, his memory wiped out of fear that he'd let loose the truth about how he got his scars. Nobody found him after that, not until five years had passed.

After he'd been charmed, he'd stuck to the creatures of the forest like a lifeline; To him, they were his people, more than anyone on the outside had been. He wore casual garb, whatever he could make or find inside the grounds that fit him. He liked the centaurs, in particular, feeling some sort of kinship with them despite their lack of relation. It'd been a centaur who helped him out of the confused he'd been in as a young boy.
At first, the creature had tried to send him back to the castle, much to the dislike of Elian. Why would he go back to the ones who tossed him away and wished him dead? After much convincing, they decided he wasn't going to leave even if they forced him out at first, so they kept him for the time being. It was only when a groundskeeper found him all those years later that he even remotely considered leaving the forest. It'd been a long battle, a game of cat and mouse, in which the Hogwarts employee had tried to bait him out and gain his trust; Many secret meetings were held in the most obscure parts of the forest, in which he was trained steadily, accustoming himself to the mannerisms of humankind, and re-learning to speak in much a similar manner as they.

Eventually, he gained the courage to visit the school, in which the staff did their best to identify and reintegrate him into the wizarding world. Even still, he didn't respond to his real name. It wasn't familiar to Elian, now a young adult, who hadn't heard in so long. He didn't recognize it, not realizing that those trying to call him by it were trying to see if it were his real name. Eventually, they gave up trying to call him Elian Reed, and just stuck with Patchwork, his nickname, and the name that once taunted him in his early years of life.
Patchwork returned to his studies, taking his time in relearning what he'd missed, doing his best to catch up to his peers. It was in this period of time that he met Averill, a magical creature with a mix of veela and merfolk blood, who at the time was running from a band of magical game hunters. He saved her, barely, and the two began to bond, her being much younger than him at the time. With a bit of lying, forging, and convincing, he'd gotten her a future Hogwarts education, and when he finished his studies after a long, hard four years, he helped her with her work. He assumed a teaching position at the school, at first teaching magical creatures studies before deciding to take up a job substituting on campus instead. When Averill graduated, she joined him in substituting, her serving as his assistant and sharing a home with him temporarily before getting a small, quaint little residence by the black lake.