Appearance.

PB: Icons

Terry has just finished a late adolescence growth spurt and now stands at a imposing 6'3''. He has an athletic yet gangly build and hasn't yet grown out of the clumsiness that comes from having shot up several inches in a short period of time--meaning he sometimes under judges his reach and knocks over various objects including but not limited to: lamps, stacks of books, potions and other such delicate items. (His Grandmere has forbidden him from entering her drawing room without multiple cushioning Charms in place.)

He tends to wear casual robes (or fire resistant ones when he's on the job). He does love Muggle clothes, but like most wizards his age who grew up in a 100% Wizarding family, he's not quite sure what goes where, leading to a rather eclectic sense of style when not influenced by his friends. He has taken a love to thong sandals, and would wear them all year round if he could get away with it.

Personality.

Terry is naturally cheerful and energetic, prone to babbling at times and usually with his head in the clouds. He's mostly nice to everyone, comes across as fairly innocent and naive. He loves Quidditch as much as he does blowing shit up. He's very outspoken, and has trouble keeping his mouth shut, even if he should.

His friends would call him flighty. At Hogwarts he's involved with EVERYTHING, though he bounced from club to club in a sort of monthly rotation. When he did make the Quidditch team he gave that first priority, but still found time for the DA, Charms club and the Astronomy club. His attention was never captured by any one thing (aside from writing, but he could change his style and characters whenever he wished).

Terry's general attitude towards life is that it's one big adventure and should be enjoyed one day at a time. Since the final battle this is something that Terry believes in even more strongly. Each of us was given a finite amount of time in life, he says, and it's up to the individual to experience as much of that life as possible. Which is why, unless he's completely distracted by writing, he's up for most anything. He's usually the first to suggest something (like getting magical tattoos for example) but doesn't always think through the consequences.

At a young age he found he had a talent for Charms, Transfiguration and Potions and it is in those areas that he's chosen to apply his studies too. He has dedicated himself fiercely to those disciplines and thrills in accomplishing something new. He enjoys experimenting with Charms and creating new spells, especially when it's something no one else has tried before. When he is in experimentation mode he's very focused--nothing matters except the spells and he often forgets to eat or shower unless prodded by someone. During these times Terry is not a very pleasant person to be around, but this character trait is something his friends have come to find endearing through the years.

When he's not working Terry is a very social individual. He was never a very traditional Ravenclaw, sometimes preferring to skiv off homework to play a round of football or Quidditch, or to arrange an epic party for his overworked Housemates. He often read comic books while his Housemates studied and rushed at the last minute to get his essays done on time. This aspect of his personality did not endear him to the stricter Professors (McGonagall and Snape for example) but he always managed to get at least an Acceptable (and usually an Oustanding in Transfiguration, which always made McGonagall shake her head and tell him if he just applied himself a bit more, he could be untouchable). At test times Terry never stressed himself out and went in intending to do his best. It was a strategy that worked for Terry and he was never disappointed in his results. He managed to get 9 OWLs despite not being the most dedicated student in Ravenclaw. Despite his friendly demeanor and desire to be around people, there hasn't been much opportunity for Terry to explore a romantic relationship.

LIKES: The color orange, walking barefoot in the rain, Quidditch, blowing shit up in the name of science, running, chipmunks, books, peppermint white chocolate ice cream, adventures, pirates, interesting curses, QUIDDITCH!!!, learning to play the piano, hunting for Nargles
DISLIKES: taking things seriously, the color grey, when his socks get all scrunched up in his shoes, lemon meringue pie, blood purists,
HABITS: Likes his tea at exactly 4:17pm when at all possible. Always aligns his quills by length before starting to work. Likes to sleep sprawled on his stomach in the middle of bed.
VICES: Drinking to excess, sleeping past noon, TALKING IN CAPITAL LETTERS, biting his nails, never making his bed, COFFEE, staying up three nights straight researching a curse.

History.

To really get to know the Boot family, one must start at with the family patriarch, Aloysius Boot. Born in 1920, Aloysius was sorted into Ravenclaw and excelled in his studies. From a long line of impressive witches and wizards, Aloysius followed his father and grandfather before him into the Curse Breaking profession. He met his wife, Delphinia, while working on a curse in Argentina in 1945. She was a Curse Breaker as well, who moonlighted writing illicit romance novels frowned upon by polite society. Immediately taken with Delphinia (despite her penchant for socially unacceptable novels), it took Aloysius the better part of 10 years to convince her marry him. Their only son Jasper was born in 1959, upon which time they decided to base their Curse Breaking operations out of England to provide a stable home life for their son. Aloysius got involved with the Ministry, and though he was outwardly supportive at home Delphinia was subject to hours of ranting on what was wrong with society, and how things were simpler in places like Brazil and India. Delphina continued writing her romance novels, and the occasional paper for popular Charms periodicals.

Jasper started Hogwarts in 1970 and was sorted into Hufflepuff, which came as a shock to his father who had been grooming him for Ravenclaw since before he could walk. Delphinia took it with her usual air of acceptance, making it clear which parent Jasper took after. Jasper always had preferred running outside and impromptu broom races with the groundskeeper to reading and researching all that boring, stuffy stuff. He was a natural athlete, and joined the Hufflepuff Quidditch team as Reserve Keeper in his 2nd year. He made first string in 3rd year, and barely scraped through classes--leading to more than one argument with his father who maintained that professional Quidditch wasn't an acceptable profession, and one must have something to fall back on if things don't work out. Jasper ignored his father and after leaving Hogwarts was immediately snatched up by Puddlemere United as a Reserve Keeper. Shortly after he met Anna Farnsworth, who he knew peripherally from Hogwarts. She was a Auror trainee in her first year investigating a string of vandalism on professional Quidditch stadiums. Jasper made a fool of himself trying to impress her, and eventually Anna decided to give him a shot. They were married six weeks later, a whirlwind romance eaten up by the press, and less than nine months after that Terry was born.

Jasper was never as involved in politics as Aloysius was, and mostly made a name for himself as a Quidditch hotshot. Aloysius kept his fingers in a few different pots at the Ministry, and took the occassional Curse Breaking job to keep from being bored. Delphina continued to write her naughty books, and gained a following among the younger housewives in the Wizarding community. If a few of her books edged the line of political dissent, it was waved away as silly women's fiction, and ignored by the higher ups in society. As for Terry, his early childhood was uneventful, and he grew up surrounded by family and wanting for very little.

That all changed in 1987, just after Terry's 7th birthday, when Anna was hit with a curse while in pursuit of Dark Wizards. The Healers at St. Mungo's couldn't find a cure, and neither could Delphina and Aloysius and any number of the Curse Breaker colleagues could cure her. She died in September, wasting away in a hospital bed. Heartbroken, Jasper turned to alcohol and wild broom races to numb the pain. The newspapers had a field day with Quidditch's Golden Boy going off the rails. Aloysius, heavy with guilt over not being able to save his daughter-in-law, buried himself in research, hoping to find a way to break this particular curse to stop it from killing anyone else. Only Delphinia seemed to remember the little boy wondering where his Mummy had gone, and did her best to care him while.

Eventually Aloysius found a cure, but it did little to ease his guilt. It wasn't until Jasper was almost killed in an illegal (and drunken) broom race that Delphinia decided enough was enough. She sat her men down and reminded them there was a scared little boy who needed them to deal with their grief in a less destructive way. It wasn't easy, but eventually they began to heal.

Terry had always been an outgoing child, and other than several months just after his mother died, he could always be found with a smile on his face, a book one hand and his broom in other, when he wasn't off with his grandfather on Grand Adventures, or hanging out in the Puddlemere locker room during practices. His first major sign of magic came when he was 9, and decided that reading while flying was a good way to multi-task. Turns out, it wasn't, and Terry lost control of the broom (which he had stolen from his father's collection) and flew headlong into a tree. Luckily, his magic kicked in, and instead of getting smooshed, he bounced off and landed safely several feet away.

When the time came to leave for Hogwarts, Terry was understandably excited. His family had stopped trying to figure out which House Terry would end up with around his 7th birthday, though they all agreed there wasn't a Slytherin bone in his body. As it turns out, Terry took after his Granddad and was Sorted into Ravenclaw, where he immediately made a name for himself as the prankster of the group. He made quick friends, especially with Michael Corner and Anthony Goldstein. The three of them referred to themselves as the Three Muskateers, with Terry as the obvious Porthos of the group.

Hogwarts was a bright and exciting time for Terry, and he did his best to enjoy everything it had to offer. There wasn't a club Terry didn't at least join for a two week period, though he only stuck it out with Charms Club and Quidditch for longer than a year. In the middle of his 2nd year, his father had a major Quidditch accident that ended his professional Quidditch career. After taking six months to rehabilitate, Jasper accepted a coaching position with Puddlemere, and at the beginning of the 1998 season became the Head Coach. Terry joined the Ravenclaw team as Chaser in his 3rd year, and cheered on Cedric Diggory with the rest of the school in 4th.

It was about that time that he started realizing his interests were different than most of his friends. Rather than obsessing over asking Mandy Brocklehurst or Hannah Abbott to Hogsmeade, he wondered if he'd get punched in the face if he flirted with Ron Weasley or Ernie MacMillan. Not willing to risk people hating him, Terry asked Mandy Brocklehurst out and dated her for most of 4th and half of 5th year, before he finally had to tell her the truth. She was the first person he ever told he was gay, and it gave him the courage to come out to his family (who said they already knew) and a few friends. He dated clandestinely through the rest of Hogwarts, though nothing serious and only had sex with his last boyfriend shortly before leaving Hogwarts.

Terry did well in classes despite being rather flighty, and graduated near the top of his class in Charms, Potions and Transfiguration. He also earned NEWTs in Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, History and Care of Magical Creatures, with scores good enough to find a position anywhere he liked. However, he wasn't impressed with what he knew of the Ministry, and had no desire to go into Healing. Instead, he asked his Granddad if he would think about Apprenticing him as a Curse Breaker, and after some thought his Granddad agreed. Terry expected working with Granddad to be another of their Grand Adventures, but was quite surprised that Aloysius Boot was a strict task master and left little room for "fun" in the beginning months of an Apprenticeship. The work was loads harder than anything at Hogwarts, but Terry was determined to make his grandfather proud.

Luckily, Terry does have a good amount of free time in these early months, as there are some jobs that are just too dangerous for an inexperienced Apprentice until he's finished his preliminary studies and passes the Curse Breaker Apprentice exam the Ministry mandates. This means that Terry has plenty of time to laze about, hang out with his mates, and try to ignore the way Michael's shirt rides up in the back when he reaches for a book. He loves to party, and during one memorable night convinced the Muskateers to get matching tattoos on their shoulders.