Basic
Full Name: Sakurai Ryonosuke
Age: 16-17 (as of 2005)
Birthdate: 13th July 1988
Birthplace: Takaharu, Japan
Hometown: Yokohama, Japan
Residence: Sunderland, England
Blood: Half-blood
Pet: Jiji (black cat)
Wand: Cherry with dragon heartstring core, 8½″, very flexible
Patronus: Fox (only successfully conjured a corporeal Patronus once under very specific conditions)
Boggart: Himself but with a blank and featureless face
Skills: Metamorphmagus
Occupation: Student (Mahoutokoro: 1995–2003, Hogwarts: 2004–present)
Appearance
Height/build: 1.65m (5′ 5″) / Slim
Hair/eye colour: Black / Dark Brown; enjoys changing his hair and eye colours to suit his mood
Family
Adoptive Father: Sakurai Naotaka, 45, executive at a Japanese automobile company
Adoptive Mother: Sakurai Chiha, 45, translator and former English teacher
Biological Father: Tachibana Shinichi, 43, Auror
Biological Mother: Tachibana Megumi, 41, Japanese Ministry of Magic Official
Biological Younger Twin Sister: Tachibana Sayo, 17, Seer
Hogwarts
House: Hufflepuff
Year: 6th (2004–2007)
Quidditch Position: Chaser (2004–present)
Best Class: Magical Theory
Worst Class: History of Magic
Extracurriculars: Flying, Music
O.W.L.s
Arithmancy – O
Astronomy – O
Charms – A
Defence Against the Dark Arts – A
Herbology – E
History of Magic – D
Magical Theory – O
Potions – E
Study of Ancient Runes – E
Transfiguration – A
N.EW.T.s
Alchemy – TBD
Ancient Studies – TBD
Arithmancy – TBD
Astronomy – TBD
Magical Theory – TBD
Potions – TBD
Study of Ancient Runes – TBD
History
Ill-Fated Twins and Doumeki’s Grudge
Leo was born Tachibana Kaito alongside his younger twin sister Sayo to the half-blood Tachibana family. The twins’ arrival was not met with joy but trepidation; while the traditional belief that twins were associated with bad luck was largely seen as baseless superstition in modern Japanese society, their mother Megumi had reason to be worried. She was a descendant of the Tsukimisato family, an ancient clan that once forged a pact with a dark entity known as Doumeki the Thousand-Eyed Spirit in exchange for the gift of foresight. After Doumeki bestowed its gift to the matriarch of the family, she betrayed it with a cleverly conceived plot before sealing it away in an unknown place, thereby claiming her prize without paying the price.
Or so she thought. Every few generations later, a pair of twins would be born to the family, with the girl possessing the Inner Eye – the gift bestowed upon her bloodline by Doumeki, and simultaneously a curse born of its grudge. As they grew up, the girl would be haunted by visions of Doumeki, who would first try to possess the girl and take control over her body. Next, the dark spirit would attempt the same on the boy through the mental connection between the twins, so that it could use them as its puppets to break the eight pairs of magical seals that imprisoned it.
Doumeki’s initial attempts came dangerously close to success, and the family was thus forced to find a way to thwart the dark spirit’s plans. Subsequent generations would eventually learn to split the ‘cursed’ twins up after their birth, severing the mental connection between the two before sending the boy away to another family. A side effect of the severing of the bond was that one twin would lose their ability to wield magic, and invariably the boy would be treated as the sacrifice.
As per the family’s customs, Kaito and Sayo had to be separated. The mental connection between the twins was cut, and Kaito was given up for adoption to a Muggle family. Sayo, on the other hand, would stay with the family, where she would be homeschooled and receive specialised education to harness the power of her Inner Eye and learn to shield her mind from Doumeki.
A New Family, A New Life
Kaito was adopted by a Muggle couple, Sakurai Naotaka, an executive at an automobile company, and Sakurai Chiha, an English teacher. The couple renamed him Ryonosuke, and loved him as though he was their own flesh and blood.
Somehow or another, when Ryo’s mental connection to his twin sister was severed, he did not completely lose his magical abilities, though his magic did become considerably weaker. When he was two, he was able to change the colour of his hair by himself, which caused his parents no small amount of alarm. A Muggle liaison officer had to be dispatched to explain to the Sakurais that their adopted son was a wizard and a metamorphmagus – a trait that he inherited from his biological father – and that he would eventually need to attend Mahoutokoro to learn how to control and use his magic. Ryo was also told not to use his abilities in public, and that he was different from the other kids.
In Ryo’s mind, being different wasn’t a good thing. He was suddenly not part of the same group as those around him, including his parents. But he held on to the hope that, when he started school at Mahoutokoro, he would finally be with kids who were just like him.
School was… rough, to say the very least. His unfamiliarity with magic and the wizarding world made him feel horribly out of place, and his status as a metamorphmagus caused some of his peers to distrust him. Eventually he learnt that it was better to keep his head down, fake a smile, and fade into the background.
Academically, Ryo struggled with the practical aspects of his schoolwork, though he fared much better in the theoretical portions and classes that didn’t involve that much wandwork. Outside of his classes, he did find something he was legitimately good at: Quidditch. Apart from being a speedy and agile flyer, he had a high degree of spatial awareness, and his talent for not drawing attention to himself allowed him to disappear from his opponents’ view and reappear from seemingly out of nowhere to intercept the Quaffle. These traits, when combined, made him a formidable – if unorthodox – Chaser, and an unpredictable opponent to play against.
Unbreakable Red Thread of Fate
Despite Shinichi and Megumi’s efforts to keep the twins apart by sending Ryo away, fate still brought them together somehow. During a school trip to a temple located on a sacred mountain in 2003, Ryo was at the back of the group accompanying a classmate who had sprained his ankle when he literally crossed paths with Sayo, who was on her way to visit the same temple.
Sensing that the twins were right beside each other, it was at this juncture that Doumeki made its move. Abruptly Sayo was overwhelmed by frightening visions as the dark spirit invaded her mind. The close proximity of the twins to each other made it possible for Doumeki to re-establish the broken mental link between them, after which the dark spirit swiftly went after Ryo. The suddenness of the psychic assault caught both of them off-guard, and Doumeki easily gained control over the two of them.
With both twins now under his control, the spirit instructed its newfound puppets to seek out the magical seals and destroy them. Unquestionably the twins marched off, deaf to the protests of Ryo’s classmate. They eventually arrived at a forgotten shrine overgrown with plants and flanked by a pair of stone statues – the first of the eight seals that had trapped Doumeki for over a thousand years. Drawing their wands, they each began to cast a dark spell to shatter the magical seals. And as Ryo did so, the colour began to fade from his Mahoutokoro uniform until it became stark white in colour.
Alas, Doumeki’s plan hit an unexpected roadblock. The two seals had to be broken simultaneously, else the intact seal would automatically restore its broken counterpart to pristine condition. However, Ryo’s magic was too weak to break the ancient seal, and despite the dark spirit’s best efforts, the boy simply could not muster the required amount of magical energy. Enraged and desperate, the spirit tried to forcibly channel as much of its own power through Ryo, heedless of the potential damage it could do to the boy. The sheer amount of magical power placed immense strain on Ryo’s body, which threatened to burn up from the unnatural amount of magic it was channelling.
Ryo’s teachers arrived in the nick of time, and with their help Sayo managed to break free from Doumeki’s grip. Once her mind and body were hers again, she freed her brother from Doumeki’s influence, thus putting a decisive end to its escape attempt.
The Aftermath of the Incident, and Moving to Britain
The twins were subsequently sent to a wizarding hospital, where Ryo spent a couple of weeks recovering from the magical burns he had received from channelling Doumeki’s dark magic. Doumeki’s possession had also rendered him more susceptible to mind control, and though the healers tried their best, they were unable to cure Ryo of this condition. Sayo, on the other hand, was in much better shape and was discharged after a few days.
Before she left, Sayo told Ryo about how the history of her family, and how Doumeki’s curse had caused them to be born as twins as part of the dark spirit’s plans to escape its imprisonment. To say the revelation shocked Ryo was a severe understatement, and he was left shaken for a long time and became even more uncomfortable and confused about his identity.
When Ryo was finally allowed to go home, he was greeted by a piece of terrible news. Even though he had been possessed by Doumeki when he broke the Japanese wizard’s code, he was not allowed to continue studying in Mahoutokoro. Officially, he was told that the school did not want to risk the possibility of Doumeki suddenly possessing Ryo again and endangering the students. In reality, however, it was the Tachibanas who had used their considerable influence to convince the school to expel Ryo. They had insisted that Ryo needed to leave Japan, so that he would never ever cross paths again with Sayo, and Doumeki would never be able to manipulate them again.
Coincidentally (or perhaps, thanks to the Tachibanas once more), Naotaka was asked by his superiors if he would like to take up a position at the British subsidiary of the company, which was headquartered in Sunderland. After discussing the matter with his wife, the Sakurais decided to relocate to the United Kingdom and enrolled Ryo at Hogwarts. The lengthy administrative process, however, meant that Ryo ended up taking a gap year, and only resumed his studies in 2004 as a Fifth-Year.
Life at Hogwarts
As a transfer student, Ryo had to go through the Sorting Ceremony. He was one of the oldest students to be sorted and felt pretty embarrassed by and uncomfortable with all the attention he was getting, and it only got worse when he turned out to be a hatstall. His uncertainty about his own identity made it difficult for the Sorting Hat to arrive at a satisfactory decision, but it eventually placed him in Hufflepuff.
Adjusting to life at Hogwarts proved a little harder than he had expected, but he tried his best and soldiered on. After one of his peers mispronounced his name as Leo, the nickname stuck, and everyone began to address him as such.
As with his Mahoutokoro days, Leo’s grades were held back by his weak magic, though he continued to do well in the theory-heavy classes. His unfamiliarity with the local culture and history also caused him to flunk his History of Magic exam quite spectacularly. On the Quidditch pitch, however, he fared much, much better than expected. Having spent many years training in bad weather over the stormy seas while dodging Muggle planes, playing on the Hogwarts pitch felt like child’s play. He easily earned his spot on the Hufflepuff team and quickly gained a reputation amongst the other teams for being remarkably difficult to mark and pin down.
Starting his Sixth Year
More than a year has passed since Leo arrived in the United Kingdom to begin a new chapter of his life. As a foreign-born wizard raised by Muggles – and not to mention one half of a pair of twins whose birth was part of some ancient malevolent entity’s revenge plot – he’s still trying to grapple with who he’s supposed to be and forge his own identity. Right now the only thing he’s certain of is that he’s likes Quidditch and he’s good at it, and that’s his starting point for now.
Personality
On the surface, Leo appears to be an earnest, agreeable and easygoing guy, if a little too polite. In reality, this is a facade that he has carefully crafted for himself over the years to conceal his insecurities and self-doubt, and to avoid drawing too much unnecessary attention towards himself. Even when he’s alone or when he’s with his closest friends, he is so accustomed to wearing this mask that he rarely – if ever – lets it slip.
Leo’s insecurities stem from his worries about how others view him, and how he should portray himself so that others would accept and like him. Yet, the more he tries to pretend to be someone else, the more he worries about what might happen when others realise that he had been faking it all along. Most worryingly, however, is the fact that he has donned his mask for so long that he doesn’t quite know what his true self is like. Is he who he thinks he is beneath his mask, or has he come to believe his own lie after living it for so long?
Face Claim: Osaki Shotaro