[hider=Damien Blackstone]
[b]Name:[/b] Damien Blackstone

[b]Appearance:[/b] [img]https://78.media.tumblr.com/b9edacac123022e4779091c6aeb26c72/tumblr_oll1pzqMpN1vbsl1xo4_250.jpg[/img]

[b]Age:[/b] 26

[b]Gender:[/b] Male

[b]Blood Status:[/b] Pureblood

[b]Hogwarts House:[/b] Slytherin

[b]Personality:[/b] Damien is a bright and ambitious young teacher who strives to best equip his students with not just the tools to defend themselves against the dangers of this world, but also to proactively shape their image as powerful witches and wizards, all the while keeping an open mind about what is and isn't "Dark Arts". His colleagues may view him as somewhat eccentric (in terms of mindset, not behavior).

[b]Biography:[/b]

[i]Pre-Hogwarts:[/i] Damien hails from the Blackstones, a noble and extremely pure house of American wizards. Born in Chicago, he lived the life of any American pureblood child: spending his free time playing and socializing with purebloods, half-bloods and muggleborn alike, but also being privately groomed as a proper scion of a noble house: this includes higher society mannerisms, fashion, pastimes (musical instruments, early broom flight lessons) and magical house secrets*. An only child, him and his parents moved to Britain at the time political blood purists rose to power. While they didn't agree with the racist and dictatorial principles that ministerial heads at the time upheld, they saw it as convenient that the new order's wake indirectly created a society where dark magic, a big part of Blackstone in-house culture (see the hider below), was more accepted and could more freely be researched. Coming to Britain, Damien was taught to fake disgust for muggleborns so as to not raise suspicion within upper end circles as the Blackstones became part of Britain's elites, but without actually ever believing the propaganda. After the purist's fall, however, the Blackstones ended up being viewed with suspicion from both sides: the old, undiscovered and "reformed" party heads and associates scorning them for never proactively defending the cause, yet reaping the benefits; the wizards sided with the light wary of them because they WERE openly practicing and researching the dark arts, even though they weren't committing evil actions with them. By the time he was eleven, Darien cultivated an aloof attitude, looking down upon both sides: one for their outdated, bigoted views; the other for their irrational moral strictness.

[i]Hogwarts Days:[/i] Damien's Hogwarts adventure started off with one of the longest Sortings in the school's history. Basically, The Hat determined that the youngster fit perfectly and without a shadow of a doubt with the guiding principles of Slytherin. In fact, he fit SO well, that he would have a hard time dealing with a lot of the others that had been or were about to be sorted there (cunning without ambition, self preservation without cunning, background pride without pride in their own individual capacity for greatness, gratuitous evil, etc.). At the boy's request, The Hat struggled to determine what was the best house for Damien, not just in terms of core house principles, but also core principles of the average member. Finally, Damien had a choice between Ravenclaw and Slytherin, but ended up going for Slytherin as he simply could not fathom the concept of gathering knowledge as an end in and of itself rather than a road to actual power. In classes, Damien effortlessly outperformed his peers, not just in terms of academic achievement and grades, but also as a master duelist. He could never really fit in with them socially though - not because he was introverted, quite the contrary - but because his name was Blackstone. His favorite class was Transfiguration and his least favorite was History of Magic. He got perfect marks on all his OWL's and NEWT's. In the summer, he would receive additional training on the secret arts of his house from his parents.

[i]Post-Hogwarts[/i]: Damien eschewed taking up a real job after school, but rather invested his time into participating in dueling competitions, locally as well as internationally, striving to be the best of the best. A couple medals later, he got recognized and recruited as an Auror specialized on investigation and post-case cleanup, after the Ministry recognized his martial prowess and mastery of mind magic. And, yeah, he did mostly that until returning to Hogwarts at the new Headmaster's behest. Ah, for what it's worth and if it will ever come up, Damien has never been married or close to it.

[i]Favorite Hogwarts Memory:[/i] Short disclaimer: if you need our character's favorite memory for the purpose of summoning a patronus, Damien never actually... uses his Patronus, because the Self Puppeteer charm makes him sort of immune to Dementors (again, see the tab below). He literally only learned how to create Patronuses when he was 25 so he could teach the charm as a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. But if it's just to learn more about their personality, sure, here goes.

Damien's favorite school memory was winning the Triwizard Tournament for his school as a 7th year. That year's iteration was set in Hogwarts, and Damien lucked out in not only being chosen to participate, but also lucking into rounds that played to his strengths. The first round was one where they had to trick the Mirror of Erised into displaying certain things to extract multiple objects out of; the second round was combat, where they had to retrieve a badge while fighting magic immune or magic resistant beings like Giants; the third round was a race where the contestants were not allowed to use mobility magic, apparation, or brooms, but WERE allowed to directly attack each other in any way in order to slow each other down. And the best part wasn't just that he got the trophy, but also that he enabled Slytherin to win the house cup in his last year at Hogwarts. Go snakes XD.

[hider=Magical House Secrets]
As I was saying, the Blackstones go deep in their exploration of magic; dangerous, forbidden or otherwise. Those are all spells and techniques that Damien, his parents, and his relatives back in America are proficient at (though he might not be capable of all of them in his reverted state). I'm dividing this into three sections: Legilimency & Occlumency, Minor Horcruxes & Soulshard Spells, Willjacking.

[b]Legilimency & Occlumency:[/b] The Blackstones have developed these arts to the point where they can make very specialized use of them, which they divide and classify into 6 subtypes. Every Blackstone child learns Airmind Occlumency at 11, Watermind and Firemind Occlumency at 15, Watermind and Airmind Legilimency at 16 and Firemind Legilimency at 17. For a summary of differences, pros and cons:
[i]Airmind Occlumency:[/i] This is what most wizards think of as "Occlumency" in general, and it involves clearing one's mind of all thought and emotion, presenting an empty void to any Legilimens who wanders in. Upsides: it offers the most protection from Legilimency specifically; it allows the highest ability to notice if someone is trying to read you. Downsides: any Legilimens will be able to tell that you are an Occlumens if you are using this technique; it doesn't protect from potion-based mind magic like love potions; confusion potions or Veritaserum; and it hinders the user's ability to execute emotion-based magic like the Patronus or the Unforgivable Curses.
[i]Watermind Occlumency:[/i] The ability to present a constantly shifting facade of fake surface thoughts and emotions, hiding your real thought process instead of blanking it away. Upsides: if done properly, nobody will be able to tell that you are an Occlumens, allows the practitioner to resist the effects of potions. Downsides: requires the highest degree of active focus, makes it harder for you to notice if someone is trying to read your mind compared to the other subtypes, imperfect Occlumens might slip up real thoughts into their stream of fake ones.
[i]Firemind Occlumency:[/i] The ability to arm your mind with traps, mazes and backlash mechanisms that attempt to dissuade, lock out/in or even cause permanent damage to anyone trying to read your mind. Upsides: while Firemind Occlumency can be used actively, it can also be used passively, setting up your defenses and then leaving them there, which comes in handy if you have something else entirely to focus on or if you're sleeping; it DOES offer partial protection from the Imperius curse as the caster must go past (and survive) your defenses first. Downsides: it's the weakest possible subtype of Occlumency in the specific case where the Legilimens is significantly more skilled than the Occlumens; it's not as effective when used against a Legilimens that is an Occlumens at the same time; if used improperly, your traps could cause collateral damage to your own mind.
[i]Airmind Legilimency:[/i] This is what most wizards think of as "Legilimency" in general. It involves stepping into someone's mind as lightly as possible and observing surface thoughts from a distance. Proficient users can also dive deeper, getting access to recent memories and the subconscious, but only as a read-only. The incantation is Legilimens, but very good practitioners can do it wandlessly and nonverbally. Upsides: hardest to detect; requires a low enough amount of focus to be able to be used mid-combat to know what spells your opponent is casting if he's doing so nonverbally. Downsides: cannot be used to access mid-term or old memories; not having line of sight with your target greatly reduces your potency.
[i]Watermind Legilimency:[/i] The ability to actively rearrange or move thoughts out of the way, until you get to what you want. Proficient users can also embed thoughts and visions into the mind of their victim, for the purpose of torture or to convince them that they want to act differently. The incantation is also Legilimens, and very good practitioners can do it nonverbally, but a wand is required. Upsides: the only subtype of Legilimency that gives access to mid-term or older memories; the most effective subtype against specifically a Watermind Occlumens. Downsides: strictly requires line of sight.
[i]Firemind Legilimency:[/i] The ability to invade a person's mind and straight out rip certain thoughts or emotions out of it for your own later use. Also has the potential to do permanent damage to a mind. The incantation is Legilimens Appropria, and a verbally spoken incantation as well as a wand are both strictly required regardless of skill. Upsides: can be effectively used in group combat with a lot of people involved if your victim can't have their full undivided attention on you; allows you to tell right away if the thoughts and memories you extract are fake or genuine; puts so much stress on the victim that it's near impossible for them to divide a part of their attention into figuring out who is in their mind. Downsides: the mental invasion is forceful enough that even wizards with zero training in Occlumency can notice it and resist if their will is strong enough; directly countered by Firemind Occlumency as you may accidentally extract traps; situationally useless as a pure investigative tool as you may partially destroy the thoughts you are extracting if you're being too aggressive. Also, obviously, it comes with the inherent weakness of extraction: the victim will no longer have the thought or memory you are extracting in their mind (this can be bad if, for example, you're using Firemind Legilimency to determine whether a criminal is guilty or not, because if he is, then he'll automatically forget what crime he committed in the first place).

[b]Minor Horcruxes & Soulshard Spells:[/b] Experimenting with Horcrux creation have led the Blackstones to determine that a horcrux doesn't necessarily split your soul in two perfect halves, and that it doesn't necessarily require the murder of a human to create. Rather, these two preconditions are tied to each other: you DO need to kill a human or human-intelligence humanoid (centaurs, goblins, veela etc) to create a 50/50 split horcrux (also called a Greater Horcrux), but you also have the option to kill lesser beings to create weaker horcruxes. Thus, killing a lower-intelligence humanoid (pureblood giants, trolls, Great Apes etc) or higher-intelligence beast (dolphins, dragons, unicorns etc) creates a Lesser Horcrux, which is a 90/10 split. Lastly, killing a lower animal or a semi-intelligent artificial being (portraits, permanently animated statues, wands) creates a Minor Horcrux, which is a 99/1 split. If a wizard kills a wand specifically to create a Minor Horcrux, then the wand itself becomes the horcrux and is now called a Soulshard. A Soulshard does not extend the life or grant reincarnating powers to its creator, but it does allow them to constantly be aware of their Soulshard's position, use wanded magic without explicitly touching their Soulshard as long as it IS nearby, and grants them access to the two Soulshard Spells, listed below. All Blackstone children, at the age of 10, kill their wand after they get chosen by it and create their Soulshard (it is viewed not just as something practical to do, but also cultural)(creating their Soulshard at age 10 does not, by any means, mean that they are taught Soulshard Spells at age 10. That would be silly)(it is completely impossible for someone who doesn't have a Soulshard to use those spells, so keep that in mind). 
[i]Self Puppeteer Charm:[/i] This charm is a modified version of the Imperius curse that can only be used on the caster itself. In layman terms, it works by the Soulshard controlling the wizard. The incantation is "Strictum Callis [Insert long and detailed instructions here in plain English] Imperia". The effect it has is that of making the caster zone out from lucid thought and leave their body behind to execute the given instructions as precisely as possible. While under the effect of a Self Puppeteer Charm, the wizard's body will make use of physical fitness, magical knowledge and any available tool to accomplish the task, but will rigidly follow it and not react to anything that is missing from the detailed instructions (to give a random example, if you instruct yourself to do your best to duel and kill a particular enemy wizard, your body WILL execute well-timed Protegos and counterjinxes to win the duel, but if the fight happens to move to a railway and a train is zipping into you, and you forgot to put "also dodge moving vehicles" in your instructions, then you're probably dead). With that risk in mind, the upside and utility of being your own Puppet is that, since you're not actively thinking, you are temporarily immune not just to fear, anxiety, boredom etc., but also opposing mind-affecting magic like Obliviation, Confusion jinxes, and even opposing Imperiuses. Once the task is completed or the caster becomes unconscious, the Self Puppeteer Charm ends. One last thing: this charm CANNOT be Finited by an outside source.
[i]Contingency Metacharm:[/i] This charm is a modified version of the Imperius curse that "stores" spells into a Soulshard. In layman terms, it works by the wizard controlling the Soulshard by relaying situational future instructions. The incantation is multi-layered and complicated. First, the wizards needs to successfully do the out-loud verbal incantation and wand movements for a different spell, stop himself right before the spell is fired, then say "Contingentia [The Incantation of the Initial Spell] Quand [Instructions on when/how to use the spell in plain English] Tempora Finite [When the Contingency Metacharm should remove itself, even if it never got triggered]". Again, keep in mind that it is the Soulshard casting the spell, not the wizard. This is important because it allows spells to go off in situations when the wizard might be incapacitated. One notable downside, however, is that as long as a Soulshard has a Contingency Metacharm set to it keyed off to a particular spell, the wizard cannot manually cast that spell until after the contingency is triggered (no, not even wandlessly, or with the use of someone else's wand. Keep in mind, it's not about wands, it's about the spiritual bond between a wizard and his horcrux). To give an example, let's say that you are preparing for a non-lethal duel that is happening soon, and want to make yourself Expelliarmus-proof, so you use the incantation "Contingentia Accio Quand bring yourself to my right hand if you are more than 15 feet away and airborne Tempora Finite 24 Hours". In the morning before the duel, you won't be able to Accio your hat from the hanger; you will have to walk up to it and pick it up. The number of Contingency Metacharms a Soulshard can hold at the same time varies with the wizard's skill and age (for the purpose of a reverted Darien, the proper number is probably 1, but his 26 year old self could manage 10ish).

[b]Willjacking:[/b] The ability to bend a wand to your will. This comes in three forms, presented in increasing order of difficulty. First of all, all Blackstones are capable of taking an unowned wand and forcing it to choose them as their wielder. This doesn't have a specific incantation, but may take anywhere between hours and seconds depending on skill level. Second of all, some Blackstones are able to switch the allegiance of a wand owned by someone else to themselves, provided that they are able to physically touch and hold it for an extended time while the original owner is not there. Third of all, very few Blackstones (this includes teacher!Darien, but most likely won't include reverted!Darien) are able to temporarily and very briefly take ownership of someone else's wand while that person is literally holding it, and cast spells from that wand while it's in the other wizard's hand. This requires the Willjacker to not just have a vastly higher willpower than the enemy wizard, but also than the wand (different wands have different wills depending on age, core, integrity, and how much they like their current owner if one exists).
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