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Aelfric Stonebridge is not quite an enigma, but approaches one. He is often silent, but never sullen or moody...more introspective or thoughtful, perhaps on occasion even apparently daydreaming, but always seems occupied with his own thoughts at these times. He has occasion to do so. His family has been under a curse for centuries, cast by the famous witch Morgan LeFay upon the family's progenitor Sir Aelfric of the Fire, a loyal member of King Arthur's Round Table. This curse causes the untimely deaths of family members, though never enough to blot out the family line, as Morgan wished the family to continue suffering for all time. According to a witch who attempted to remove the curse some one hundred and fifty years later, only the Scion of Sir Aelfric will finally remove the curse...a descendant whose name begins with the letter A, and is a paragon of the virtues of honor, bravery, and humility.
This began the Stonebridge tradition of naming every new child with a name beginning with A. Aelfric is the seventh descendant with the moniker of Sir Aelfric the wizard-knight. However, due to his late seeress grandmother's prophecy on her deathbed, his grandfather Aelred believes Aelfric is finally the long-awaited Scion. While an honorable and virtuous man who seeks to aid those who are less fortunate than he, Aelred, as the patriarch of the family, also wishes to end his family's long suffering. He himself has seen the death of three of his own children, and his own beloved wife. He has been Aelfric's father in deed if not word, though officially Aelfric is the adopted son of his Aunt Aethelswith(Thelsa) and husband D'Arielle(Darrell) Stonebridge-Gumery. This is so because Aelfric's own immediate family were all killed during a dragon attack when he was only seven years old—his mother, father, and three older siblings. Aethelswith and D'Arielle themselves have seen the deaths of two of their young children, and are very protective of the remaining two, Aethelu(Thella) and Ailith(Lithie), Aelfric's cousins/adoptive sisters.
Because of his grandfather's belief in him as the savior of the family's future generations of descendants cursed to die, he has loaded down Aelfric with training no normal boy would be expected to do. The primary training has been the essence of dueling, though not the actual act of it. This means that Aelred has taught Aelfric all of the necessary knowledge that does not require the use of magic...wand motions, intonations of words, tactics and conditioning to make the lightning-quick actions necessary to stay alive during mortal combat with wands. Eventually, Aelred wants his grandson to take up legilimency and occlumency, two skills that pair quite well with dueling, as the wizard hero Severus Snape proved during his years of spying under the dark lord Voldemort's own nose. It is his hope that Aelfric becomes an Auror like himself and his oldest son, Aelfric's Uncle Aelfraed. Aelred has also had Aelfric study wizarding and Hogwarts history early on, though Aelfric has been a lover of history, particularly that of his own family, since he could first read. The grandfather feels that to truly honor one's roots, you must know where you and others have come from.
Unfortunately, all of this training in dueling and history has not allowed Aelfric to even touch upon any of the other areas of magic he will need to study. He knows as much of herbology and potions as any muggle would. And while he has assisted his aunt and uncle in their charity concerns, he still knows about as much about the muggle world as a typical wizarding world citizen, as he has not had the time to study their culture or technology, just help those in need.
Most Stonebridges have ended up in Gryffindor, though a significant number find themselves in Hufflepuff through their stronger attraction to humility than courage or honor. It is a rare Stonebridge that ends up in Ravenclaw, though it is not a dishonor to be a member of that House. A Stonebridge who ends up in Slytherin House, however, has, until recently, been looked at as a dark spot on the family honor. Aelred, as patriarch, has decreed that such ostracism is prideful, and against the tenets of humility. Since no Stonebridge has been sorted into Slytherin for well over two hundred years, it is unlikely to be tested any time soon, though. Aelfric dreads the sorting because of this.
In his young life, all Aelfric has wished for—he thinks—is to make his grandfather proud of him and carry the name of Stonebridge with honor. However, deep within him is a yearning to belong to something greater than just his family tree, and Hogwarts seems just the thing. He also craves friends outside his family, though he gets along well enough with Aethlu (though she secretly dislikes him), and is incredibly close with Ailith, who is one year younger than him, and who he treats as a baby sister, though she seems to enjoy this treatment. And deepest of all, he seeks what he lost with his parents and siblings—a love to sustain him throughout his life. While his extended family offers some of this, particularly Ailith, it is more of a romantic love he is seeking. All of his harsh training (and he has scars to prove it—his grandfather was an Auror in the vein of Mad-Eye Moody) left him little or no time to seek relationships with girls his age, and now, after his training with his grandfather between sessions at JWA, he still has yet to have a girlfriend, a first kiss, or even a first date. It is something he is very sensitive about, but yearning for all the same. It will likely be a weak spot in the future for him, particularly if a female has an eye for him and presses her advantage.
The venerable Stonebridge family traces its roots as far back as William the Conqueror in 1066, as one of the first Saxon families to support the new Norman king. Stonebridge Castle was begun in 1067 and finished in 1071 as most of the cost was borne by the king in return for the Stonebridge's allegiance. However, the families roots in the wizarding community go as far back as Arthurian times, when the family, behind their head Sir Aelfric of the Fire, supported good King Arthur and his councilor, the famous Merlin. However, while the family was prosperous during Arthur's rule, once Merlin disappeared, Morgan Le Fay was able to bring about a final curse to the family, to suffer numerous and untimely deaths for all time. This curse has lasted until the present day, with numerous attempts to lift it, to no avail. In 1141, even the famous witch Hatti Lestentedus was unable to break the curse, though she did discover that the key to lifting it would depend upon one family member pure enough of heart and filled with honor and courage, who carried the letter A to begin their name...the Scion of Aelfric. Thus began the naming convention of the family, which continues to this day.
The Stonebridge family still lives largely in Herefordshire, England, in Stonebridge Castle, though it was mostly converted to a manor house in 1668, with the proceeds the family had been given by a grateful populace, when they had helped the area avoid the majority of the plague that ravaged the people at that time. Unfortunately, the curse still continues as strong as ever, and as individuals, the Stonebridges are a serious, zen-like lot in the majority, seeing life as a quest to find the greatest good for those around them, always hoping that one of them will become the humble, honorable braveheart that will heal the family of its centuries-old curse.
At present, the patriarch of the family is Aelred Stonebridge, a dour, immovable elder man who retains all of the forcefulness and resoluteness of his younger years, and served as an Auror tasked to international duties in his day. In this way he met his wife, Lucerne Lavigne, while on a mission in France. They married a month later, devoutly in love with one another from their first conversation. They had several children, but as the curse worked its ill, of their five children, only two survive to the present day. Of those two, one, Aelfraed, has no children, and the other, Aethelswith, has seen the death of two of her own.
After bearing her youngest child, Adalmund, Lucerne developed complications and died days later, and as neither magic nor muggle medicine was able to save her, it was believed the curse had again struck, as it affects not only those of direct descent, but also those who marry into the family as well, as history had long shown. Those who married a Stonebridge had to know from early on in a relationship what they were getting into, and not a single Stonebridge would ever hide the fact of their curse from a loved one—honesty is a primary virtue in the afflicted family.
Adalmund grew to be a healthy, intelligent young man, who carried himself admirably and brought honor to the family during his time at Hogwarts, even fighting in the Battle of Hogwarts that saw the famous Harry Potter defeat the Dark Lord Voldemort. He himself always said that the greatest action he performed during that violent event was simply surviving. There were many in the family who saw Adalmund as the greatest possibility for the Scion of Aelfric, as he was an exemplary young man, honorable, fair, committed to his family, and unflinchingly courageous.
When Adalmund began courting a half-blood, Temerita Ffellowes, it caused a few feathers to be ruffled—not because of her family's status, however. While the Stonebridges were an old wizarding family and primarily pureblood, they accepted both half-bloods and muggle-borns, as long as they were from good, respectable families. The Ffellowes, though, had been known for centuries as practitioners of dark magic, and many of them were both steadfast supporters of the Dark Lord and some of them actually became Death Eaters. Temerita, however, was the black sheep of her family, chosen by the sorting hat as a Gryffindor, to the shock of her Slytherin-only family. She grew increasingly estranged from her family, and it all fell apart when she began to see Adalmund Stonebridge romantically in their sixth year at Hogwarts. She accepted her expulsion from the family with poise, and the Stonebridges came to adopt her as one of their own, especially after she married Adalmund, as they saw she was one of their own—stalwart, honest, and dedicated to the service of others.
It was with great anticipation when both Temerita and Aethelswith both became pregnant within weeks of the other, and the family looked forward to the birth of two new Stonebridges. The recent deaths of both Aldway and Aelfreda Stonebridge, twins and older siblings of Adalmund, had shocked even the hardened members of their family. When Temerita gave birth to a boy, and Aethelswith gave birth to a girl, they named them after the progenitors of the Stonebridge family's rise to power—Aelfric of the Fire, and his sister Aethelu, a powerful witch in her own right. Aelfric already had three older siblings—Aelfreda, Aethelgyth, and Aelfstan, who were already displaying magical prowess at a young age. Aelfric was loved by his family as the baby, and was spoiled from birth. As for Aethelu, she was the fisrtborn for Aethelswith and her husband D'Arielle Gumery, a well-known French wizard with considerable skills in potions and herbology.
It was a rain-soaked morning, just before the apple harvest and cider making would begin in Herefordshire and signal the build-up to the festival of Wassail, when three dragons attacked Mortimer's Cross, the local muggle-wizarding town closest to Stonebridge Castle. The entire adult family of wizards took flight on their various brooms to aid other wizards and witches on the scene in combatting and driving off the ferocious beasts until Ministry of Magic specialists could arrive and take care of them permanently. It was during this battle that Temerita and her three oldest children were killed when one of the dragons bore down on the Castle itself and destroyed one of its wings with fire. And, unfortunately, in the battle back over Mortimer's Cross, Adalmund, too, had been a victim of one of the other flying behemoths.
It was the greatest day of disaster the Stonebridge family had seen in their long history. Aelfric, only seven, was orphaned, losing his father, mother, and siblings in the span of minutes. Of course, his uncles and aunts and his various cousins were his family as well, and he came to live primarily with Aethelswith, D'Arielle, Athelu, and Ailith in the castle after it was repaired, but as most of the extended family lived in the castle, he was brought up by all of them...but primarily his grandfather, who took it upon himself to be the father Adalmund would not have the chance to be. Aelred had strongly believed that his youngest son would be the one to break the family curse, as his wife—who had been a powerful seer—had foretold that the youngest of the young would become the Scion of Aelfric. Aelred had been the youngest of his family, outliving the rest of his immediate family, and so he had seen Adalmund as the natural 'youngest of the youngest'...but now young Aelfric fit the prophecy as well.
The elder Stonebridge lost no time in training young Aelfric in whatever he was able to learn, and more. The old man was determined to make Aelfric the Scion, and it became, after the death of his youngest son, the driving force in his life. Every day was a challenge for Aelfric, who was by this time ten and being taught advanced magic like dueling, though without a wand...Aelred filled his head with arcane facts and the history of both his family and the wizarding world at large, as well as training him in both the mental and physical requirements to become a deadly duelist. It had been a long tradition of the Stonebridges to be outstanding duelists, and when wandless magic began to be practiced more widely, Aelred looked down upon the talent, seeing it as dishonorable to fight without a wand. Therefore, Aelfric was instructed in none of its ways.
All of this training and practice instilled in Aelfric a strong sense of duty and purpose. It also gave him a terrible fear of failure, particularly failing his venerable grandfather, whom he looked up to almost like a god. During all of this, his cousin Athelu, who was more of a sister than a cousin, began to grow jealous of the time their grandfather spent with Aelfric. By now she had three more siblings herself, and the youngest, Ailith, was growing up to look very similar to her, but with quite a different disposition.
It was around this time that more tragedy struck. Aethelu's younger brothers Alflaed and Aldway were killed in a terrible accident when they tried to mix some of their father's potions. A tremendous magical eruption of green flame enveloped the room, but the only objects damaged were the brothers themselves, who were reduced to ashes.
After this, Aethelswith became more protective of her remaining children than ever. She convinced D'Arielle that the best chance of their remaining children's survival was to homeschool them, training them as Aelred was training Aelfric. Athelu, Ailith, and Aelfric too, were told they would go neither to the Junior Wizarding Academy nor Hogwarts, and all three were shocked and resistant to the idea. However, Aelred was behind Aethelswith and D'Arielle's thinking...for the present.
What changed this setup was the insistence of Aelfric's Uncles Aelfraed and Sutherland. Aelfraed was himself an Auror, as was his husband Sutherland Burrows, and they insisted that there would be no way for any of the three children to become the Scion if they were kept from the prodigious knowledge and training of Hogwarts. Aelred was swayed by his knowledgable son and Sutherland, who were quite the sages themselves. Aelfric had always loved spending time with his uncles, as they would take him and Ailith on spine-tingling broom rides over the Pennines and shoot across to Ireland, where they would race along majestic cliffs topped with verdant grasses. They took him by apparition to many exotic and wonderful places in the world, and helped broaden his mind considerably, more so than the book learning and history his grandfather Aelred had taught him. For Ailith it began her love affair with brooms and a dream to become a quidditch player.
It was Aelfric who finally tipped the scales, bringing his stepfather D'Arielle over to the side of sending the cousins to school. Now Aethelswith was alone in her desire to keep the children home, and finally ended her stubborn insistence on keeping them there, though with severe reservations. She would often send mail to them when they had begun their schooling at the Junior Wizarding Academy, and even made personal visits, as she worked in the Ministry of Magic in the Department of Mysteries, using the excuse that she was going out for lunch, “and just wanted to pass through to see how her children were doing.” All three young Stonebridges were embarrassed by her behavior, as other students saw them as excessively pampered and babied. Aelfric resented this most of all, and this began the straining of his relationship with his stepmother and aunt. Aethelu resented it on a different level, wanting to finally be free from her mother's smothering presence and spread her wings. She began to flirt outrageously with boys at the school, and had several short and abortive relationships, only building her reputation as a heartbreaker and a tough personality. Ailith, on the other hand, recognized her mother's reasons for being so clingy, and got through the attention fairly unscathed, earning a reputation as an outwardly gentle, soft-spoken girl who actually carried great courage and strength of heart within her.
It is now the last year of the Junior Academy for Aelfric and Aethelu, and the second to last for Ailith. For Aelfric in particular, it is both an ominous and exciting time. The burden of his grandfather's expectations is heavy on him, and he is quite young to carry such a weight. Still, he manages to carry it well—most of the time. He is quite introspective, though outgoing when he needs to be. He is a natural leader, but doesn't use those skills as he could, instead choosing to sit back and observe others before acting. He craves the opportunity to finally duel when at Hogwarts, and hopes to gain every iota of knowledge the professors there offer, so as to finally become what his grandfather believes he can be...the Scion of his namesake, and lift the centuries-old curse on his family. However, he still has much to learn about courage, and honor, as he has yet to be tested in any meaningful way. For the present, he believes in himself, but that belief is fragile, stressed by the expectations of his grandfather, whom he only wishes to please as the elder father he has always seen him as.
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