There are many layers to Harold Dingle. He is, in fact, much like an onion - a little bit brown on the outside, but once you cut him open you'll probably start crying. On the outside, Harold is polite, charming, and exactly what every mother would love for her daughter to bring home. On the inside, however, Harold is nothing more than a raging pervert, though he does have a bit of a sensitive side that often manifests itself in haiku form, embarrassingly enough. Fortunately for everyone around him, not very many people know this about him. Sure, he has his off moments - his hands might linger too long after a hug, or he might accidentally follow a girl into the girls' loo and realize his mistake a bit too late afterwards, but most of the time his perversions go unnoticed.
Even though girls would often love to bring him home to mother, he is not at all a perfect little angel. He once tried to pass off a bag of sugar as cocaine to a group of 11th year students when he was only twelve. Just put it this way - if it will illegally make you smarter, thinner, longer, or crazier, Harold will try to sell it. He's never had very much money to begin with, and he's sure everyone knows that the best way to make a quick buck is by selling what the kids want most - drugs, sex, rock n' roll, and male enhancement in the form of pilfered Viagra. And if Harold can charge exhorbitant fees for any of these things, then why not? You only live once! This is why it is paramount that Harold come across as a charming young gentlemen - if people think that he's getting his stuff from somewhere that's less-than-respectable, well, Harold knows how rich kids can be. So all Harold really does is charm, charm, charm, and he lets his skeletons stay comfortable hidden deep in his closet.
Harold is a very social boy. Being alone makes him distinctly uncomfortable so he's always in someone's face, either trying to sell them something or simply trying to make conversation. Of course, much of his social endeavours are spent seeing if there are young teenage girls who need his help with a particular class, help that he is more than happy to provide. Harold is also something of a mooch - he makes it a point to have friends who are wealthier than he is so that they can pick up the tab whenever they go places. He is notorious for hiding in a dark corner as everyone pays up before a night of debauchery, and he will claim to need financial aid from his buddies for the cheapest of things. While it is true that Harold often does not have the money for the finer things in life, he saves up enough from his dealings on the side to be able to pay for his own lunch. But no one has to know that, now do they?
All in all, it is best to lock up your women and children - especially your children - when Harold enters a room. He canvasses with the best of them, making everyone believe that he is delightful in a very strange sort of way. However, Harold is not a delightful boy in the slightest - there's not a test that he hasn't cheated on, a skirt he hasn't tried to look up, or a fifteen-year-old girl that he hasn't tried to feel up at least once in the past year. Not surprisingly, Harold is very good at keeping secrets - his own and others'. If he's so keen on having no one know about all of his dirty ('dirty' being the operative word there) little secrets, then why should he run around telling someone else's dirty little secrets? It's a common courtesy, and it's the shred of morality that Harold has left in him.
DEFINING CHARACTERISTICS
Harold is a creep. While he does hide it well, once you get to know the true Harold there is really no denying it. His criteria in a future girlfriend is someone between the ages of 13 - 15. He knows all about medieval torture methods and he only answers yes to the question "Do you like Iron Maiden?" because he thinks that's a really awesome torture device. The most important part of all of this is that Harold hides it well. Only his dorm mates might know the extent of his oddities, and he pays them in various items so that they keep quiet about it.
LIKES
1 Hair. All right, that sounds weird - but Harold is really obsessive when it comes to his own hair and others' hair. He carries around several bottles of travel-sized shampoo and conditioner with him, just so that he can kindly offer to them to those poor souls who should have really horrible hair.
2 The flute. Harold has been playing for a very long time, and even though he doesn't get the thrill out of playing that he once did, he does enjoy all of the innuendo that he gets to make because of it. Flutists do it sideways, after all.
3 Innuendos. If there is an opportunity to make a sexual innuendo, Harold will take it and run with it. Very, very far.
4 Cycling. Harold is an avid cyclist, one who locks himself in his house during the Tour de France and one who wears bike shorts as often as possible. During the winter months he laments but spends the majority of his time in a spinning class so that he doesn't lose the shape in his perfectly toned legs.
5 Slasher flicks. There will be no psychological thrillers for Harold, because all he wants to see is blood and guts being splattered across the screen. A bonus if the hot blond girl dies naked.
DISLIKES
1 His name. Well, it's not just his name, but more the fact that no really awesome nicknames can be derived from it without having to add a 'y' somewhere. And if there's a letter that Harold hates, it's the letter 'y.'
2 Sweets. Harold takes pride in his lean form, and he does not at all appreciate it when people try to give him sweets because he just knows that they're trying to make him fat.
3 Asians. Ever since his father got replaced at work with a Chinese hotshot, Harold has hated anyone who looks like they might possibly be Chinese, and since Harold had never bothered to pay attention to geography he assumes that everyone who is Asian must come from China, and therefore should be hated.
4 Reading. Harold claims that he's very smart and well-read, but what he really does is hire a younger student to do all of his required reading and write up a basic outline. Harold even hates going to see films with subtitles - if he's going to a movie, he's going to look at the hot lead actress' tits, not to spend half the time reading.
5 You.
INSIDE SCOOP
1 No one really knows the true extent of Harold's creepy ways. However, his strangest thing by far is his collection of other people's items - and they're not just random items that one might find on the ground, like pens or hairclips. No, not only does Harold have a collection of girls' underwear, he also has a collection of jock straps. He also steals family photos from his friends and frames them. Sometimes he draws hearts around the faces of especially attractive family members. All of these collections are in a large box underneath his bed at school, and he never allows anyone to touch said box.
2 He loves Burberry. He tries to make sure that he doesn't bring his extensive Burberry collection to school with him, because being a poor Slytherin is bad enough as it is, but every once in a while he accidentally packs a scarf or two.
3 Harold has a passion for disco. He is particularly fond of Donna Summer, claiming that "She Works Hard for the Money" is the only thing that can get him pumped up before a round of cycling. Perhaps because he works so hard for the money, so you'd better treat him right.
4 Spooning is one of Harold's favourite activities.
5 Harold is not at Hogwarts on an academic scholarship - he's there because he's really, really good at playing the flute. But no one needs to know this, and Harold is quite content with letting everyone think that there is some untapped genius within.
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FAMILY
Martin Dingle
Sarah Dingle
Andrew Dingle
Viola Dingle
Harold would like everyone to think that he led a rough-and-tumble life in the streets before attending Hogwarts College, but that simply isn't true. Sure, the family was nowhere near being wealthy, but Harold never had to resort to fighting for his meals in dark alleyways. Harold was never supposed to have been born, anyway - in fact, he was an accident that came eight years after the birth of his older sister, Viola. His brother, Andrew, was ten at the time. However, the Dingles let Harold believe that he was their special miracle baby and that they were all just so blessed to have him in their lives. However, they weren't quite sure if there was enough room for another child in their lives, so his parents and siblings alternated between ignoring him completely or spoiling him rotten once they realised that they'd been ignoring him completely, which is probably why Harold isn't the most balanced of people.
Harold's childhood was fairly uneventful. He didn't get along very well with his older siblings, least of all his older sister Viola. From the time that Harold could walk and talk, Viola was always making fun of him for one thing or another, and the two of them will probably never ever get along. His mother, who had forced both Viola and Andrew to take up a musical instrument at the age of five, also forced Harold to do the same. It was purely by accident that he chose the flute, because he'd actually meant to choose the drums but his chubby five-year-old fingers pointed in the wrong direction. And so began Harold's life-long love affair with the flute, and he actually became very good at playing because he didn't really have anything else to do with his life.
Luckily for Harold, he did eventually prove to be the Shining Star of the Dingle family, which somewhat lessened all of the bullying from his older siblings. He received a full scholarship to Hogwarts College based on his musical talents in primary school, and the Dingles supposed that it wouldn't hurt their pride too much to send their slightly weird son off to a fancy school. Harold rejoiced at being able to get away from his 'rough-and-tumble' life in the streets, and he rejoiced even more when he arrived at Hogwarts and discovered that the place was filled with rich kids whom he could 'borrow' things from indefinitely. Being placed into Slytherin was a bit of a surprise, but the shock quickly wore off and Harold decided that Slytherin was the place for him. It didn't take him very long to discover the joys of pushing overpriced, illegal items on rich students and now he is quite comfortable with his position at Hogwarts. Of course, there are his various little secrets but Harold is quite sure that those will stay safely hidden away.
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