Post by Dariusz Greenbaum on Aug 6, 2008 23:23:47 GMT -5
Accepted! Amazing work. Welcome to Hogwarts!
[ Full Character Name: ]Dariusz Greenbaum
[ Character Gender: ] Male
[ Country of Citizenship: ] Poland (although he really thinks of himself as Szymborgan.)
[ Physical Character Description: ] If you noticed Dariusz - which you might not - the first thing you would see about him is his size. Dariusz is short. No, not just short; tiny. Dariusz looks like a little boy with an older boy's face. At a mere four feet, eight inches, the world towers above Dariusz, and all his life he has been trying to stand up straighter to meet it.
His posture is civil and straight; his dull green eyes, hard as cold jade. For someone in a body that seems so childlike, Dariusz's features contradict his shape. His movements are precise, his gestures efficient: when he walks, he neither hurries nor dawdles. His hair - dark, curly, shoulder-length - is well groomed, but shows no signs of primping or preening. He grooms for hygiene and protocol - no more, no less.
Dariusz does not know that the tips of his ears and the peaks of his cheeks turn pink when he is flustered. He does not know that his fingers twitch when he is thinking. He does not know that he pouts when he is dubious of something. Nor does he know that this makes him look as cute as an irate chipmunk. If he did, he would be quietly mortified, then quietly mortified about his quiet mortification. And then the components of his mind would politely agree to change the subject.
[ Personality Character Description: ]
If you didn't know him, you would assume that Dariusz has the personality of one of the clocks his family is famous for making: that there is a spring inside him which makes him tick, and he will tick ceaselessly forever, second after second after perfectly measured second. In the morning, he rises at seven, and stretches. He takes his breakfast at eight. He will proceed from there to first period, and from there to second period, then to third, then to forth, and so on, and so on. No stopping. No skipping. No dawdling nor indulgence in chit-chat. Rarely would you see him talking in the hall. If he expects that (by some chaotic anomaly that real life often treats us to,) he is about to be late, he rushes through the hall with feet which blur like the mallet on an alarm clock, although he is walking, never running - to run in the halls is forbidden.
It takes a more practiced eye to understand the boy - and in the end, despite the demands he places on himself, Dariusz is just a boy. If you followed him and watched, you might see things you don't expect. When he walks around the castle grounds (on a weekend, of course,) you might see him pause and stare at the birds, tilting his head to listen to their tweeting. (If you asked why, he would not say he has a fondness for them.) You'd rarely see him when he wanders, but if you did, you'd find his expression to be something that you might see on a pilgrim walking through the veins of a lost god. He worships stillness; he delights in the mystery of each crack and corner. They call out to him to sit - study a while, work on some project, enjoy the feel of stone, sun, dirt, shadow. Without realizing that he is indulging himself, he will acquiesce.
The few who work their way past his priggish exterior will find a wealth of interests, neuroses, fascinations and complexes: He enjoys camping. He is afraid of bats, and nervous of most animals. He enjoys art, music, poetry. He cannot stand to see bullying. He cannot stand the frippery of those who believe philosophy is meaningless, especially those who believe it without knowing they do. He has a very strict code of morals, and is mostly shocked to learn it when other people don’t. He believes that all witches and wizards are innately good. When he has friends, he has a tendency to tell them what they should and should not do. If they are about to do something he believes is dangerous, he will try to stop them. He does not realize that he is bossy. He does not realize that he is priggish. He feels a strong connection to his family's heritage, and does not realize that he cannot see himself as being independent of it. He does not brag. He does not complain. He does not eat anything without knowing where it came from. He does not blame muggles for being animals, and does not realize that half of his carefully constructed moral philosophies fly out the window because he is afraid.
All in all, Dariusz Greenbaum is a shy, kind boy ruled by a sense of honor and haunted by ancestral fear. He is capable of anything he can convince himself of, and does not realize how easily emotions can foil the purity of his logic. He wants, with all his heart, to do some sort of good in the world; he cannot be happy with himself otherwise..
[ History: ]
A short history of his history:
Somewhere in Poland - few who do not live there know where - is the little town of Szymborga. Szymborga was formed shortly after World War II by a group of witches and wizards who had escaped from the horrors of the muggle war. This group believed that muggles were essentially soulless, dangerously intelligent animals who are proved to be inhuman by the atrocities they commit. Traumatized by the war and suffering from the ever-present hand of fear, these witches and wizards banded together to form a town where they knew they would always be safe from muggles, a place where not even the muggle families of witches of wizards could know their location. They found the perfect spot in a deserted area of Poland, and there, they founded Szymborga, (named after their leader, Alex Szymborg.) While Szymborga has good economic relations with the rest of the wizarding world, exporting and importing through other wizard towns, its few residents have a strict no-muggle-ties policy for any witch or wizard who wishes to live there.
One of the earliest members of Szymborga was Alfonz Greenbaum, a man who had, before the war, been highly supportive of muggle-wizard relations. His work - clockmaking - was heavily inspired by the cleverness of muggle designs, and there was no muggle device he was not eager to dissect. However, after being trapped in a concentration camp, kept alive only for his valuable skill in watchmaking, Alfonz could never forgive the muggles. He continued his incredible horological innovations, but where his work once represented the coming together of wizard and muggle technologies, now, they represented something new: Wizard superiority. Purebloods collectors across Europe hailed his work not just for its technical skill and artistry, but as a symbol of pureblood wizard triumph in the face of muggle cruelty and insanity. “Here,” they say to themselves, “on the mantelpiece is a work we would not have if blood purity was not defended!” Alfonz' son, Abram, and his grandson, Dariusz, proudly continue the tradition, although as Szymborga has sheltered them from all but the most filtered news about pureblood-muggleborn tensions, they are not fully aware of the meaning that their work has to purebloods outside of Szymborga.
And the history itself:
Dariusz remembers a strange old man who would sit by the fireplace in his house. He was there almost every day, so it was not because Dariusz was not used to the old man that he seemed so strange. It was only because at every other time, that old man looked just like his Grandpa. But when he would sit by the fire and look into the flames, Dariusz could see shadows passing beneath the old man's eyes, and know that his Grandfather was not be there. His Grandpa was too alive for this crumpled old puppet; his Grandpa built him toys, and sung him songs, and sometimes played the fiddle while his Mama and Papa danced, swirling as wildly and lightly as the snow that swirled outside the window, covering everything in glowing white. This old man could not be his grandfather. When the old man was there, his grandfather was gone.
Sometimes the old man would talk. Quietly, mostly; mumbling, possibly praying or reciting a mantra.
Eventually, knowing that it was ridiculous but needing to believe something, Dariusz decided that the old man was counting to himself. When he sleeves were rolled up, he could see that on the old man's arm was a number. This must have been the number he was counting, Dariusz recognized, in the way that little boys recognize things without thinking. He didn't like to think about it. It was such a big number.
When Dariusz asked his father about the tattoo, his Papa responded plainly that the muggles had did it, and that that's why they lived in Szymborga where it was safe. Dariusz was glad. More than anything, he feared the hand that might write such a number as the one he saw on the old man's arm.
When Dariusz turned five, his grandfather died without much fuss, and the old man mostly went with him.
By the time Dariusz was six he had decided that this 'old man' had never existed. It had just been his grandfather, unwinding from the troubles of his life. Dariusz was a smart boy, and understood unwinding; it wasn't just for springs. Everything did it: Clocks. Trees. Chickens. Floorboards. People. When things unwound, they grew weak and empty. The clock's hands slowed and stopped. The grasses withered and died. The people lost the brightness in their eyes. All sorts of unwindings - little unwindings and big unwindings which wear down people's springs so that they barely move at all.
Shortly after he realized this, Dariusz began to watch his father build his clocks with the kind of focused intensity that one does not often see in children. His Papa was all too pleased to see this: diligence and a love for work were excellent virtues in a child. Little did he know that Dariusz's fascination had started with the words on the sign on the advertisements that they shipped to neighboring towns: ”Ask to see the amazing Greenbaum clocks! Elegantly crafted and reliable, we have clocks for every purpose - and always perfectly accurate! Thanks to the Greenbaum family secret, we can guarantee that your purchase will function forever and never unwind."
Of all the things he studied, it was these qualities Dariusz admired most, and most wanted to reproduce: elegance, the rightness of something that exists in harmony with itself; reliability, the steadiness that one finds in honor and in truth. These things, he has found through his studied. The only thing that he can't figure out is how to stop from unwinding. Chaos comes in from everywhere, undoing our works and stealing our will; how can one live when the world is always in the process of killing you? Dariusz has never found an answer to this question, and perhaps he never will. However, it drives him to look. Despite his love for security and peace, Dariusz knows he cannot be whole until he understands how to live in the world when there is so much evil in it.
A timeline:
1995 - Dariusz Greenbaum is born on a snowy January night. His mother, Tziporah, predicts that he will have blue eyes. He is born with green, although she continues to insist that they are blue.
1995 - It is a good year for babies in Szymborga; a boy, Dawid, and a girl, Kazia, are born shortly after Dariusz. A marriage between Dariusz and Kazia is arranged to be held when they have both turned 17. A party is held. Dariusz gets his first sip of wine from a drunken neighbor before his mother slaps said neighbor with a copy of Mystics Monthly.
1998 - A family friend brings their large, boisterous dog over to the Greenbaum's for a visit. The dog knocks a large, expensive clock from the worktable and onto Dariusz. Young Dariusz's foot is broken; he cries for hours.
1999 - Dariusz first goes camping with his family. He walks a quarter mile away from his family while following a bird, then stands completely alone, for the first time, in the middle of the wilderness. His mother finds him almost immediately; relieved, she takes the pinecone out of his mouth, then hugs him.
2000 - Dariusz obtains a lollipop from a neighbor. He is thrilled. Fascinated with the properties of colored sugar, he experiments with the sweet, thus becoming coated in sticky syrup. After this, he wanders around his father Abram's workshop, touching everything and putting it carefully back in place (as his father ussually encouraged.) His father is horrified, and gives Dariusz an important lecture on hygene and the nature of respect.
2000 - Dariusz's grandfather dies. At the funeral, he spots a girl named Kazia playing with his neighbor, Dawid. They invite him to a game of dare. In no such mood, Dariusz declines. Dawid calls him chicken; Kazia giggles. Dariusz kicks Dawid as hard as he can in the shin. Dawid falls down crying, then punches Dariusz back; they scrap. Dariusz's father, outraged that such a disrespectful thing should happen at his father's funeral, does not yell; once the boys are pulled apart, he only looks at his son sadly, and asks, "Will you be a monster, then?" Dariusz never forgets this.
2001 - Dariusz's homeschooling begins. He works roughly the same hours as his father, assisting him in the workshop. At night, his mother teaches him about art and poetry.
2002 - Dariusz transfigures a noodle into a sping. Unfortunately, he does not realize this until he bites into it. On a brighter note, it heralds the beginning of the magical portion of his apprenticeship.
2003 - Dariusz goes out camping with his older sister Miriam, alone, for the first time. They do not fight. Miriam gives Dariusz a flower and recites him a poem she wrote. Dariusz is delighted, but forgets the poem, and gets a rash on his hands. His mother, fearing for his sister's feelings, tells him not to tell anyone, and gives Miriam a lesson regarding which plants are safe and which are not.
2003 - Dariusz's mother puts her recipe book into the cookpot, simmers it carefully, and serves it for dinner. While she has been eccentric for years, it is the first time her eccentricity has hindered her work. Dariusz's father covertly encourages Miriam and Dariusz to watch her while she cooks from now on, just in case. This precaution proves to be a wise one as Tziporah's odd episodes become more and more frequent.
2004 - Miriam begins private school with the witch's association across town, ending their weekend camping trips. Dariusz puts more time into his work, but continues camping on his own occasionally.
2004 - Dariusz is chased out of an abandoned mineshaft by bats. Having broken his father's lantern, his sits somewhere outside the mineshaft drearily. For the first time in ages, he cries for hours.
2004 - Dariusz is chased up a tree by a grapplehorn. In the tree, he cries for hours before the grapplehorn wanders away, disgusted.
2004 - Dariusz is chased into a lake by a swarm of bees along with Dawid. Dawid learns that pinatas do not occur naturally. Dawid laughs the whole way home. Never sniffling, Dariusz lectures Dawid to no effect.
2005 - Dariusz's mother, always known for her 'poetic' speech mannerisms, begins to lose her ability to communicate clearly. As a result, she can no longer teach Dariusz about culture in the evenings.
2005 - Dariusz opts to attend Durmstrang rather than continue his homeschooling, on the condition that he will continue learning the family trade. In addition to the Durmstrang workload, he recieves homework from his father every other evening.
2006 - Dariusz enters his first year at Durmstrang, rooming with his neighbor Dawid. There, he falls briefly and madly in love with a girl named Kinga Kline. For her birthday, he makes her a tin watch with a floral design spelling out her name on the back. She later returns the watch, saying that she thinks he could do better. Dariusz pours himself into the watch, returning it to her a week later. Surrounded by friends, Kinga refuses the gift loudly, denouncing Dariusz as "too short to be a boyfriend."
2007 - Dariusz returns home to find that his mother has not gotten any better. He continues his work with his father, but now works in the main room more often than the workroom, where he can keep an eye on her. Nothing happens.
2007 - Dariusz returns to Durmstrang. He unwittingly succumbs to frostbite and loses a toe and some skin from his right foot. He decides not to attend again.
2008 - Miriam, her education complete, leaves Szymborga to study herbology in Brazil.
2008 - Dariusz and his father both agree that he has kept up with both his apprenticeship and school well, Dariusz enters his first year at Hogwarts.
[ Pros and Cons : ]
Pros:
Since Szymborga allows underage children to practice magic under adult supervision, Dariusz has (probably) had more experience practicing magic than other children who were not given the same opportunities.
Dariusz has spent his entire life learning his father's trade, and as a result, he has many of the skills he will need in his adult life. He has had much practice transfiguring objects into precice shapes with precice qualities, and knows charms for regulating motion, lubrication, automatic rewinding, and many other horologically pertinent charms. He is capable of creating a functional clock or watch, given some material and time. It wouldn't be a masterpiece comparable of his father or grandfather's work yet, but he's getting there, and works on it every day.
Dariusz is very intelligent, and enjoys understanding new concepts. He is not the quickest mind around, but there is very little that will escape him for long. Due to this, combined with his strong work ethic, he gets good grades in most of his classes. This doesn't mean he likes all of them or is excellent at all of them.
Dariusz's belief in morals combined with his stubborn strength of will could potentially be a way for him to change his mind on important issues. This includes his view of muggles and muggleborns. This is not something that would happen without intervention from someone else, though.
Cons:
Since Dariusz has spent so little of his life playing and knew so few other children (there are only two other children Dariusz' age in Szymborga; only one of them was within walking distance from his house,) Dariusz has no idea how to be a normal kid. He must always be working, or engaged in quiet, constructive recreation. He cannot party or play. He simply doesn't know how. He might be open to the idea of trying these things by a persuasive person. but unless he has a specific plan as to what to do, he will be sitting in the corner waiting for it to be over.
Dariusz is very stubborn when he believes that he is morally right. While he will (almost) always be respectful to his elders (because he assumes they know more than he does,) his stiff approach to life often gets him into trouble in other ways. He not only does not, but cannot do something if he believes it is wrong somehow. This includes corner cutting, taking the easy way out, breaking school rules that he agrees with, allowing others to break school rules that he agrees with, whining, complaining, shirking work, drinking, wearing socks which do not match his pants… the list goes on and on. He isn’t stupid about these things: he can weigh two evils against one another in order to pick the lesser, and is not deaf to arguments other than his own. However, but outside of those conditions, he simply won’t allow himself an inch when he can’t see a moral reason to. This trait has already led him to lose a toe.
While Dariusz is very concerned with manners and politeness, there are some things you simply cannot learn in an etiquette book. His stiffness often makes him come off as cold and insensitive.
Having spent so much of his life in peace and quiet, Dariusz cannot stand noise, chaos and excitement. He is easily over-stimulated, and genuinely dislikes many things that his classmates are likely to enjoy.
Dariusz's need for control does not stop with himself. When he does manage to make friends, he often tries to control them for their own good. He will scold them for not doing their homework, advise them on nutrition, and warn them if he believes that they are making friends with someone dangerous. This includes muggleborns.
[Role Playing Example:]
Flopping down on the stiff mattress, Dariusz's eyes rolled over to look at his dark little work desk in the corner. In his mind, he counted: his homework was done. He had completed the chores the instructors had assigned him. And he had completed the work his father had sent him - he was still a little shaky on some of the charms involved with protecting clockwork from extreme heat and cold, and while he had done his best on the practice peice he would be sending back home tomorrow, he knew that the wood would probably not survive a good hot fire. Unfortunately, as fire was forbidden at Durmstrang, he was unable to test this.
At least, he thought to himself, shivering in the cold and watching the steam rise from his lips, I know that the works do not stiffen in the cold. If there was one thing Dariusz couldn't bear about Durmstrang, it was the cold. It seemed that the world around the castle knew of no conditions other than snow, hail, wind and extreme cold. The other day, some snow had gotten into Dariusz's boot on a hike. He had kicked his foot and managed to get it into the toe and away from his heel, away from the parts that were walking, but the snow just didn't seem to melt, and by the time he had gotten back to his dormitory his foot had become a strange shade of white. He had tried to rub it between his hands, but the skin didn't feel right.
"Geez, Dariusz," Dariusz recalled Dawid saying, sitting on the bed opposite his own. "That's disgusting! Why aren't you going to the medic?" Dariusz had half smiled at the hint of glee that danced in Dawid's voice - there were few things Dawid enjoyed more than that which disgusted him.
Dariusz had shook his head, poking the foot tentatively. It had hurt very badly earlier in the day, but he couldn't feel it now. He would probably regain feeling in the morning. "It's fine," he said. "It doesn't even hurt. Anyway, I have no time," he shrugged. "I have to complete the mechanism my father sent me... and you should be studying for your test. I will help you if you like, you know," he added, shaking his finger at Dawid, "but if you keep putting it off, it will happen exactly like it did last time! You don't know what you don't know until you find out that you don't know it!"
Dawid had laughed softly, flopping back in bed. "I know a lot more than you think I know, Dariusz. I know what's on the test. I know what grade I'm going to get. And I know some things about you, too!"
Dariusz raised an eyebrow, but Dawid did not need his prompt to continue. "You worry about all the wrong things, Dariusz. You worry about what you have to do and what you should be, but not what you want or what you are. And you know what? It's not good for you. You work all the time and never take a moment for yourself. Mark my words, midget," he said, peering at Dariusz from above the tips of his shoes. "Some day, you are going to crack."
Dawid's voice seemed so real in the memory - so real that Dariusz couldn't tell whether he was remembering, or had actually heard Dawid's voice. But no; there was Dawid's bearlike snoring from the bed opposite him. Dariusz realized that he must have been falling asleep.
Grunting, Dariusz pushed himself upright in bed. He had nearly fallen asleep in his uniform. Groggily, he leaned down to tug off his boots. However, they seemed to be stubborn tonight; the leather was cold and crusty, and seemed to have solidified around his foot. Grunting again, he gave the boot another tug, firmer this time, and another, and another. But the boot would not move.
Inhaling sharply, Dariusz brought his knee up to his chest and dug his fingers into the top of his boot, giving it one last, final, push.
Crack. THe boot flew off and landed in the corner with a thud. Dawid gave a ripping snore, but did not wake. Dariusz looked at his foot in horror.
He began to count. One, two, three, four... Breathing hard, he counted again. One. Two. Three. Four...
Staring at the space on his foot where five should be, Dariusz looked over at Dawid, then back at his foot, panting. A long, high pitched whine, as of that a dog makes, escaped the corner of his clenched teeth as he began to scream deep in his throat.
In the parts of his mind that were not screaming, something mused: Say; maybe Dawid won't do so badly on tomorrow's test, after all.
[ Full Character Name: ]Dariusz Greenbaum
[ Character Gender: ] Male
[ Country of Citizenship: ] Poland (although he really thinks of himself as Szymborgan.)
[ Physical Character Description: ] If you noticed Dariusz - which you might not - the first thing you would see about him is his size. Dariusz is short. No, not just short; tiny. Dariusz looks like a little boy with an older boy's face. At a mere four feet, eight inches, the world towers above Dariusz, and all his life he has been trying to stand up straighter to meet it.
His posture is civil and straight; his dull green eyes, hard as cold jade. For someone in a body that seems so childlike, Dariusz's features contradict his shape. His movements are precise, his gestures efficient: when he walks, he neither hurries nor dawdles. His hair - dark, curly, shoulder-length - is well groomed, but shows no signs of primping or preening. He grooms for hygiene and protocol - no more, no less.
Dariusz does not know that the tips of his ears and the peaks of his cheeks turn pink when he is flustered. He does not know that his fingers twitch when he is thinking. He does not know that he pouts when he is dubious of something. Nor does he know that this makes him look as cute as an irate chipmunk. If he did, he would be quietly mortified, then quietly mortified about his quiet mortification. And then the components of his mind would politely agree to change the subject.
[ Personality Character Description: ]
If you didn't know him, you would assume that Dariusz has the personality of one of the clocks his family is famous for making: that there is a spring inside him which makes him tick, and he will tick ceaselessly forever, second after second after perfectly measured second. In the morning, he rises at seven, and stretches. He takes his breakfast at eight. He will proceed from there to first period, and from there to second period, then to third, then to forth, and so on, and so on. No stopping. No skipping. No dawdling nor indulgence in chit-chat. Rarely would you see him talking in the hall. If he expects that (by some chaotic anomaly that real life often treats us to,) he is about to be late, he rushes through the hall with feet which blur like the mallet on an alarm clock, although he is walking, never running - to run in the halls is forbidden.
It takes a more practiced eye to understand the boy - and in the end, despite the demands he places on himself, Dariusz is just a boy. If you followed him and watched, you might see things you don't expect. When he walks around the castle grounds (on a weekend, of course,) you might see him pause and stare at the birds, tilting his head to listen to their tweeting. (If you asked why, he would not say he has a fondness for them.) You'd rarely see him when he wanders, but if you did, you'd find his expression to be something that you might see on a pilgrim walking through the veins of a lost god. He worships stillness; he delights in the mystery of each crack and corner. They call out to him to sit - study a while, work on some project, enjoy the feel of stone, sun, dirt, shadow. Without realizing that he is indulging himself, he will acquiesce.
The few who work their way past his priggish exterior will find a wealth of interests, neuroses, fascinations and complexes: He enjoys camping. He is afraid of bats, and nervous of most animals. He enjoys art, music, poetry. He cannot stand to see bullying. He cannot stand the frippery of those who believe philosophy is meaningless, especially those who believe it without knowing they do. He has a very strict code of morals, and is mostly shocked to learn it when other people don’t. He believes that all witches and wizards are innately good. When he has friends, he has a tendency to tell them what they should and should not do. If they are about to do something he believes is dangerous, he will try to stop them. He does not realize that he is bossy. He does not realize that he is priggish. He feels a strong connection to his family's heritage, and does not realize that he cannot see himself as being independent of it. He does not brag. He does not complain. He does not eat anything without knowing where it came from. He does not blame muggles for being animals, and does not realize that half of his carefully constructed moral philosophies fly out the window because he is afraid.
All in all, Dariusz Greenbaum is a shy, kind boy ruled by a sense of honor and haunted by ancestral fear. He is capable of anything he can convince himself of, and does not realize how easily emotions can foil the purity of his logic. He wants, with all his heart, to do some sort of good in the world; he cannot be happy with himself otherwise..
[ History: ]
A short history of his history:
Somewhere in Poland - few who do not live there know where - is the little town of Szymborga. Szymborga was formed shortly after World War II by a group of witches and wizards who had escaped from the horrors of the muggle war. This group believed that muggles were essentially soulless, dangerously intelligent animals who are proved to be inhuman by the atrocities they commit. Traumatized by the war and suffering from the ever-present hand of fear, these witches and wizards banded together to form a town where they knew they would always be safe from muggles, a place where not even the muggle families of witches of wizards could know their location. They found the perfect spot in a deserted area of Poland, and there, they founded Szymborga, (named after their leader, Alex Szymborg.) While Szymborga has good economic relations with the rest of the wizarding world, exporting and importing through other wizard towns, its few residents have a strict no-muggle-ties policy for any witch or wizard who wishes to live there.
One of the earliest members of Szymborga was Alfonz Greenbaum, a man who had, before the war, been highly supportive of muggle-wizard relations. His work - clockmaking - was heavily inspired by the cleverness of muggle designs, and there was no muggle device he was not eager to dissect. However, after being trapped in a concentration camp, kept alive only for his valuable skill in watchmaking, Alfonz could never forgive the muggles. He continued his incredible horological innovations, but where his work once represented the coming together of wizard and muggle technologies, now, they represented something new: Wizard superiority. Purebloods collectors across Europe hailed his work not just for its technical skill and artistry, but as a symbol of pureblood wizard triumph in the face of muggle cruelty and insanity. “Here,” they say to themselves, “on the mantelpiece is a work we would not have if blood purity was not defended!” Alfonz' son, Abram, and his grandson, Dariusz, proudly continue the tradition, although as Szymborga has sheltered them from all but the most filtered news about pureblood-muggleborn tensions, they are not fully aware of the meaning that their work has to purebloods outside of Szymborga.
And the history itself:
Dariusz remembers a strange old man who would sit by the fireplace in his house. He was there almost every day, so it was not because Dariusz was not used to the old man that he seemed so strange. It was only because at every other time, that old man looked just like his Grandpa. But when he would sit by the fire and look into the flames, Dariusz could see shadows passing beneath the old man's eyes, and know that his Grandfather was not be there. His Grandpa was too alive for this crumpled old puppet; his Grandpa built him toys, and sung him songs, and sometimes played the fiddle while his Mama and Papa danced, swirling as wildly and lightly as the snow that swirled outside the window, covering everything in glowing white. This old man could not be his grandfather. When the old man was there, his grandfather was gone.
Sometimes the old man would talk. Quietly, mostly; mumbling, possibly praying or reciting a mantra.
Eventually, knowing that it was ridiculous but needing to believe something, Dariusz decided that the old man was counting to himself. When he sleeves were rolled up, he could see that on the old man's arm was a number. This must have been the number he was counting, Dariusz recognized, in the way that little boys recognize things without thinking. He didn't like to think about it. It was such a big number.
When Dariusz asked his father about the tattoo, his Papa responded plainly that the muggles had did it, and that that's why they lived in Szymborga where it was safe. Dariusz was glad. More than anything, he feared the hand that might write such a number as the one he saw on the old man's arm.
When Dariusz turned five, his grandfather died without much fuss, and the old man mostly went with him.
By the time Dariusz was six he had decided that this 'old man' had never existed. It had just been his grandfather, unwinding from the troubles of his life. Dariusz was a smart boy, and understood unwinding; it wasn't just for springs. Everything did it: Clocks. Trees. Chickens. Floorboards. People. When things unwound, they grew weak and empty. The clock's hands slowed and stopped. The grasses withered and died. The people lost the brightness in their eyes. All sorts of unwindings - little unwindings and big unwindings which wear down people's springs so that they barely move at all.
Shortly after he realized this, Dariusz began to watch his father build his clocks with the kind of focused intensity that one does not often see in children. His Papa was all too pleased to see this: diligence and a love for work were excellent virtues in a child. Little did he know that Dariusz's fascination had started with the words on the sign on the advertisements that they shipped to neighboring towns: ”Ask to see the amazing Greenbaum clocks! Elegantly crafted and reliable, we have clocks for every purpose - and always perfectly accurate! Thanks to the Greenbaum family secret, we can guarantee that your purchase will function forever and never unwind."
Of all the things he studied, it was these qualities Dariusz admired most, and most wanted to reproduce: elegance, the rightness of something that exists in harmony with itself; reliability, the steadiness that one finds in honor and in truth. These things, he has found through his studied. The only thing that he can't figure out is how to stop from unwinding. Chaos comes in from everywhere, undoing our works and stealing our will; how can one live when the world is always in the process of killing you? Dariusz has never found an answer to this question, and perhaps he never will. However, it drives him to look. Despite his love for security and peace, Dariusz knows he cannot be whole until he understands how to live in the world when there is so much evil in it.
A timeline:
1995 - Dariusz Greenbaum is born on a snowy January night. His mother, Tziporah, predicts that he will have blue eyes. He is born with green, although she continues to insist that they are blue.
1995 - It is a good year for babies in Szymborga; a boy, Dawid, and a girl, Kazia, are born shortly after Dariusz. A marriage between Dariusz and Kazia is arranged to be held when they have both turned 17. A party is held. Dariusz gets his first sip of wine from a drunken neighbor before his mother slaps said neighbor with a copy of Mystics Monthly.
1998 - A family friend brings their large, boisterous dog over to the Greenbaum's for a visit. The dog knocks a large, expensive clock from the worktable and onto Dariusz. Young Dariusz's foot is broken; he cries for hours.
1999 - Dariusz first goes camping with his family. He walks a quarter mile away from his family while following a bird, then stands completely alone, for the first time, in the middle of the wilderness. His mother finds him almost immediately; relieved, she takes the pinecone out of his mouth, then hugs him.
2000 - Dariusz obtains a lollipop from a neighbor. He is thrilled. Fascinated with the properties of colored sugar, he experiments with the sweet, thus becoming coated in sticky syrup. After this, he wanders around his father Abram's workshop, touching everything and putting it carefully back in place (as his father ussually encouraged.) His father is horrified, and gives Dariusz an important lecture on hygene and the nature of respect.
2000 - Dariusz's grandfather dies. At the funeral, he spots a girl named Kazia playing with his neighbor, Dawid. They invite him to a game of dare. In no such mood, Dariusz declines. Dawid calls him chicken; Kazia giggles. Dariusz kicks Dawid as hard as he can in the shin. Dawid falls down crying, then punches Dariusz back; they scrap. Dariusz's father, outraged that such a disrespectful thing should happen at his father's funeral, does not yell; once the boys are pulled apart, he only looks at his son sadly, and asks, "Will you be a monster, then?" Dariusz never forgets this.
2001 - Dariusz's homeschooling begins. He works roughly the same hours as his father, assisting him in the workshop. At night, his mother teaches him about art and poetry.
2002 - Dariusz transfigures a noodle into a sping. Unfortunately, he does not realize this until he bites into it. On a brighter note, it heralds the beginning of the magical portion of his apprenticeship.
2003 - Dariusz goes out camping with his older sister Miriam, alone, for the first time. They do not fight. Miriam gives Dariusz a flower and recites him a poem she wrote. Dariusz is delighted, but forgets the poem, and gets a rash on his hands. His mother, fearing for his sister's feelings, tells him not to tell anyone, and gives Miriam a lesson regarding which plants are safe and which are not.
2003 - Dariusz's mother puts her recipe book into the cookpot, simmers it carefully, and serves it for dinner. While she has been eccentric for years, it is the first time her eccentricity has hindered her work. Dariusz's father covertly encourages Miriam and Dariusz to watch her while she cooks from now on, just in case. This precaution proves to be a wise one as Tziporah's odd episodes become more and more frequent.
2004 - Miriam begins private school with the witch's association across town, ending their weekend camping trips. Dariusz puts more time into his work, but continues camping on his own occasionally.
2004 - Dariusz is chased out of an abandoned mineshaft by bats. Having broken his father's lantern, his sits somewhere outside the mineshaft drearily. For the first time in ages, he cries for hours.
2004 - Dariusz is chased up a tree by a grapplehorn. In the tree, he cries for hours before the grapplehorn wanders away, disgusted.
2004 - Dariusz is chased into a lake by a swarm of bees along with Dawid. Dawid learns that pinatas do not occur naturally. Dawid laughs the whole way home. Never sniffling, Dariusz lectures Dawid to no effect.
2005 - Dariusz's mother, always known for her 'poetic' speech mannerisms, begins to lose her ability to communicate clearly. As a result, she can no longer teach Dariusz about culture in the evenings.
2005 - Dariusz opts to attend Durmstrang rather than continue his homeschooling, on the condition that he will continue learning the family trade. In addition to the Durmstrang workload, he recieves homework from his father every other evening.
2006 - Dariusz enters his first year at Durmstrang, rooming with his neighbor Dawid. There, he falls briefly and madly in love with a girl named Kinga Kline. For her birthday, he makes her a tin watch with a floral design spelling out her name on the back. She later returns the watch, saying that she thinks he could do better. Dariusz pours himself into the watch, returning it to her a week later. Surrounded by friends, Kinga refuses the gift loudly, denouncing Dariusz as "too short to be a boyfriend."
2007 - Dariusz returns home to find that his mother has not gotten any better. He continues his work with his father, but now works in the main room more often than the workroom, where he can keep an eye on her. Nothing happens.
2007 - Dariusz returns to Durmstrang. He unwittingly succumbs to frostbite and loses a toe and some skin from his right foot. He decides not to attend again.
2008 - Miriam, her education complete, leaves Szymborga to study herbology in Brazil.
2008 - Dariusz and his father both agree that he has kept up with both his apprenticeship and school well, Dariusz enters his first year at Hogwarts.
[ Pros and Cons : ]
Pros:
Since Szymborga allows underage children to practice magic under adult supervision, Dariusz has (probably) had more experience practicing magic than other children who were not given the same opportunities.
Dariusz has spent his entire life learning his father's trade, and as a result, he has many of the skills he will need in his adult life. He has had much practice transfiguring objects into precice shapes with precice qualities, and knows charms for regulating motion, lubrication, automatic rewinding, and many other horologically pertinent charms. He is capable of creating a functional clock or watch, given some material and time. It wouldn't be a masterpiece comparable of his father or grandfather's work yet, but he's getting there, and works on it every day.
Dariusz is very intelligent, and enjoys understanding new concepts. He is not the quickest mind around, but there is very little that will escape him for long. Due to this, combined with his strong work ethic, he gets good grades in most of his classes. This doesn't mean he likes all of them or is excellent at all of them.
Dariusz's belief in morals combined with his stubborn strength of will could potentially be a way for him to change his mind on important issues. This includes his view of muggles and muggleborns. This is not something that would happen without intervention from someone else, though.
Cons:
Since Dariusz has spent so little of his life playing and knew so few other children (there are only two other children Dariusz' age in Szymborga; only one of them was within walking distance from his house,) Dariusz has no idea how to be a normal kid. He must always be working, or engaged in quiet, constructive recreation. He cannot party or play. He simply doesn't know how. He might be open to the idea of trying these things by a persuasive person. but unless he has a specific plan as to what to do, he will be sitting in the corner waiting for it to be over.
Dariusz is very stubborn when he believes that he is morally right. While he will (almost) always be respectful to his elders (because he assumes they know more than he does,) his stiff approach to life often gets him into trouble in other ways. He not only does not, but cannot do something if he believes it is wrong somehow. This includes corner cutting, taking the easy way out, breaking school rules that he agrees with, allowing others to break school rules that he agrees with, whining, complaining, shirking work, drinking, wearing socks which do not match his pants… the list goes on and on. He isn’t stupid about these things: he can weigh two evils against one another in order to pick the lesser, and is not deaf to arguments other than his own. However, but outside of those conditions, he simply won’t allow himself an inch when he can’t see a moral reason to. This trait has already led him to lose a toe.
While Dariusz is very concerned with manners and politeness, there are some things you simply cannot learn in an etiquette book. His stiffness often makes him come off as cold and insensitive.
Having spent so much of his life in peace and quiet, Dariusz cannot stand noise, chaos and excitement. He is easily over-stimulated, and genuinely dislikes many things that his classmates are likely to enjoy.
Dariusz's need for control does not stop with himself. When he does manage to make friends, he often tries to control them for their own good. He will scold them for not doing their homework, advise them on nutrition, and warn them if he believes that they are making friends with someone dangerous. This includes muggleborns.
[Role Playing Example:]
Flopping down on the stiff mattress, Dariusz's eyes rolled over to look at his dark little work desk in the corner. In his mind, he counted: his homework was done. He had completed the chores the instructors had assigned him. And he had completed the work his father had sent him - he was still a little shaky on some of the charms involved with protecting clockwork from extreme heat and cold, and while he had done his best on the practice peice he would be sending back home tomorrow, he knew that the wood would probably not survive a good hot fire. Unfortunately, as fire was forbidden at Durmstrang, he was unable to test this.
At least, he thought to himself, shivering in the cold and watching the steam rise from his lips, I know that the works do not stiffen in the cold. If there was one thing Dariusz couldn't bear about Durmstrang, it was the cold. It seemed that the world around the castle knew of no conditions other than snow, hail, wind and extreme cold. The other day, some snow had gotten into Dariusz's boot on a hike. He had kicked his foot and managed to get it into the toe and away from his heel, away from the parts that were walking, but the snow just didn't seem to melt, and by the time he had gotten back to his dormitory his foot had become a strange shade of white. He had tried to rub it between his hands, but the skin didn't feel right.
"Geez, Dariusz," Dariusz recalled Dawid saying, sitting on the bed opposite his own. "That's disgusting! Why aren't you going to the medic?" Dariusz had half smiled at the hint of glee that danced in Dawid's voice - there were few things Dawid enjoyed more than that which disgusted him.
Dariusz had shook his head, poking the foot tentatively. It had hurt very badly earlier in the day, but he couldn't feel it now. He would probably regain feeling in the morning. "It's fine," he said. "It doesn't even hurt. Anyway, I have no time," he shrugged. "I have to complete the mechanism my father sent me... and you should be studying for your test. I will help you if you like, you know," he added, shaking his finger at Dawid, "but if you keep putting it off, it will happen exactly like it did last time! You don't know what you don't know until you find out that you don't know it!"
Dawid had laughed softly, flopping back in bed. "I know a lot more than you think I know, Dariusz. I know what's on the test. I know what grade I'm going to get. And I know some things about you, too!"
Dariusz raised an eyebrow, but Dawid did not need his prompt to continue. "You worry about all the wrong things, Dariusz. You worry about what you have to do and what you should be, but not what you want or what you are. And you know what? It's not good for you. You work all the time and never take a moment for yourself. Mark my words, midget," he said, peering at Dariusz from above the tips of his shoes. "Some day, you are going to crack."
Dawid's voice seemed so real in the memory - so real that Dariusz couldn't tell whether he was remembering, or had actually heard Dawid's voice. But no; there was Dawid's bearlike snoring from the bed opposite him. Dariusz realized that he must have been falling asleep.
Grunting, Dariusz pushed himself upright in bed. He had nearly fallen asleep in his uniform. Groggily, he leaned down to tug off his boots. However, they seemed to be stubborn tonight; the leather was cold and crusty, and seemed to have solidified around his foot. Grunting again, he gave the boot another tug, firmer this time, and another, and another. But the boot would not move.
Inhaling sharply, Dariusz brought his knee up to his chest and dug his fingers into the top of his boot, giving it one last, final, push.
Crack. THe boot flew off and landed in the corner with a thud. Dawid gave a ripping snore, but did not wake. Dariusz looked at his foot in horror.
He began to count. One, two, three, four... Breathing hard, he counted again. One. Two. Three. Four...
Staring at the space on his foot where five should be, Dariusz looked over at Dawid, then back at his foot, panting. A long, high pitched whine, as of that a dog makes, escaped the corner of his clenched teeth as he began to scream deep in his throat.
In the parts of his mind that were not screaming, something mused: Say; maybe Dawid won't do so badly on tomorrow's test, after all.