romulus maximilian baulstridge, forty years old, was born on july 26, 1970, just ten years before the first war broke loose and made a mess of things for his middle-class parents and the simple middle-class life they'd only just started to get on its feet. romulus, or rom as we was more popularly known, was the third child of four. his father, titus, was a ministry worker, and his mother louise was a housewife. during his childhood, this had been relatively stable. his father had a job, his mother was happy, he and his three siblings were all attending the local grammar school, and none of his predominantly muggle neighborhood and the mostly muggle childhood friends ever cared that he was half-blood, that he was not rich, or that he was a "strange little kid, waving his number 2 pencil around like someone straight out of fantasia's magician's apprentice. ignorant of the turmoil of wizarding world politics--and the long-standing and ridiculously outdated social hierarchy that fueled it--rom and the rest of the baulstridge children grew up watching saturday cartoons on the telly; 1990, blake's 7, and sapphire and steel were early favorites, all about space and the adventurous beyond the stars his father said were indicators of their near future. he ate cold cereal; he rode a bicycle around the neighborhood with his friends; he traded matchbox cars with his brother in exchange for an extra chocolate chip cookie before dinner. but most memorable of all, during this more quiet time, was music. his father was the more integrated in wizarding culture and therefore cared very little about muggle music but his mother, who was more muggleborn than half-blood (having three muggle grandparents), encouraged rom's unexpected love for it. she gave him records of pink floyd, jethro tull, genesis, and yes. of soft machine, david bowie, roxy music, and mott the hoople. of many other bands, many other songs, and the many other things that revolve around music and the magic it seemed to conjure on its own until rom, then only eight years old, preferred his rosewood guitar to his junior broomstick, even the moving picture puzzle his father had bought him for christmas. rom fell in love, at first with the utter thrill of listening to different sounds and emulating different rockstars, then, eventually, at the reverberating message of freedom and liberation that rang in his ears.
at hogwarts, rom was sorted into ravenclaw. he was, and always had been, a scattered-brained child with a one-track mind and in ravenclaw, he had found himself struggling to be at part with his more studious and more diligent peers. hogwarts was where he had also had his first taste of the purist views inherent in the wizarding world and he didn't like it at all. the first war was at its fullest during rom's latter years at hogwarts and everything turned to chaos. hogwarts was a mess, some of his friends lost friends, family. some didn't even return to hogwarts at all. rom finished in 1982 and by then the war had blown over and everyone was cleaning up after voldemort had made a mess of things. rom, who had been young and optimistic, had grown up in the middle of it all, one of the numerous unwilling spectators to a bloody, violent mess and this was the start of rom's strong dislike for the selfish, greedy, power-hungry fuckers who fucked things up. his strong political views, however, remained idle for a while. he pursued a career in music and was fortunate enough to have found his place in the band the weird sisters and for a while, things were going swimmingly. the band had a hold on success and some semblance of fame and prestige to their name. until, not long after the first war, voldemort returned. once again, rom's idealistic head was outraged by it. but this war was over shortly after it was publicly recognized and rom's anger was once again put to rest.
in 2010, however, now middle-aged and perfectly content with advancing his musical career no further, rom felt that society was once again at the brink of political unrest. after more than a decade of peace, the fuckers that fucked were once again popping up here and there. although subtle, the propaganda they spread was undeniable and their intentions ever clearer. this time, they seemed to conquer the stage through legitimate means and rom, now completely capable as well as pretty fucking fed up with the fucking twats, was finally granted the opportunity to help prevent yet another purist takeover. |
