FLYNN, MARK BRADLEY

Mark Bradley Flynn
Here's to the strong; thanks to the brave.
Don't give up hope: some people change.
Against all odds, against the grain,
Love finds a way: some people change.
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full name:

• Good student
  
• Intelligent
  
• Persistent
  
• Willing to change
  
• Adaptable
  
• Steadfast
  
• Loyal (to persons, not allegiances)
  
• Ambitious
  
• Determined
  
• Dreamer
  
• Good friend
  
• Skilled with potions

• Tends to be a bully
  
• Has to have his way
  
• Pushy
  
• Temperamental (quick to anger)
  
• Has a tendency to rage (violently)
  
• Has a hard time making friends (but an easy time keeping them)
  
• Doesn't get along with his family.
  
• Ambitious to a fault (cut-throat)
  
• Can be unkind/cruel
  
• Easily confused when it comes to allegiance

• Quiddich
  
• Animals (mostly dogs)
  
• Junk food (and lots of food)
  
• Potions
  
• Grey magic (what could be used for dark or light)
  
• Slytherin house
  
• Reading
  
• Mystery
  
• His Family (whether they know it or not)

• Confusion about family issues
  
• Eating vegetables or most things good for him
  
• Muggles
  
• Muggle-borns and Mud-bloods
  
• People who lack direction
  
• Staying Still
  
• Being confined
  
• Idiots

• Hyperactivity (Mark can't sit still for long)
  
• Picks at the cuffs of his shirts when he's nervous
  
• Guzzles pumpkin juice constantly
  
• Ignores people he doesn't like (as though they don't exist)
  
• Stops to pet every dog he sees

• Learn legilimency
  
• Become an Auror
  
• Reunify with his father
  
• Maintain a strong relationship with his aunt
  
• Find a way to communicate with his deceased mother and siblings

People can change, can't they? That's the basic premise that has dominated Mark's life for the past three years. Guilt has wracked him constantly, invading his dreams and waking him up in the middle of the night screaming. There were nights that he wished he hadn't chosen Slytherin in the sorting ceremony, days that he wished he could go back in time and fix his wrongs, but every day he spends wishing that there was some way for him to be well and truly punished for the mistakes that he has made. There is nothing... nothing that he can do to bring his mother and siblings back, but he knows that he is responsible for their deaths, and he will never forgive himself for it. The only thing that he can do is remain loyal to his remaining family and to Dumbledore as he struggles to make right of his life.

Mark isn't always a nice person. And in fact, he wasn't always as nice as he is today. He has a mean streak and an ambition that will eat you alive if you aren't careful. But over the past three years, things have begun to change. After the fire, it took him three years to recognize what he had done and to feel the real remorse for it. His father no longer spoke to him, and he spent his holidays with his Deatheater Aunt, Brigit. She taught him everything she knew about the dark arts, but it wasn't comforting, and the more that he has learned, the more that Mark has turned away from the Dark Arts to seek something he considers more normal and certainly more fulfilling.

Now, five years after the death of his mother and siblings, Mark has begun to feel a real, gut wrenching remorse that has sent him over to the Order side of the war. He continually seeks to punish himself for the house fire that he believes he caused, and he has been unable to purge himself from the guilt in the same way that he's been unable to make things right with his father. Mark experiences a great deal of fear and uncertainty as a result of his past choices and he is trying hard to find even ground so that he can tackle the threat of facing his father again.

All in all, Mark isn't a bad person. But he is a sad person and he has a great deal of stress in his life. For the past few years he has been applying all of his academic energy to learning to become an animagus and is now focusing on legilimency. He's highly academic and school gives him something to focus on other than his worries about what's happened in the past. One of the reasons he wants to become a legilimens is because more than anything, he wants to figure out the mind and understand it when he doesn't really understand his own mind.

At first glance you might say that Mark inherited his father's height. He stands at six feet and three inches tall, which for a seventeen year old is still quite tall. But that doesn't account for the four inches that his father has on his height, towering over him in any crowd. But he is more slender than his father, almost thin, dependent more on his magic than he is on his brawn. He's exceptionally physically strong regardless, and he has worked hard to become the captain of the Slytherin Quiddich team. He's a strong Keeper and enjoys the position, but he tends to be envious of the smaller team members who are able to compete for the Seeker position.

Mark has brown hair that he wears fairly shaggy and piercing blue eyes that seem to look right through you. There's a certain hardness in his face that is normally unusual in someone his age, but Mark has seen a lot of life. His clothing style reflects some of his life experience, in that he prefers clothing that is just slightly worn-looking, but still in the latest styles for the area in which he lives.

Mark is a t-shirt and jeans kind of guy, though he often wears an Oxford shirt over his tees. He's almost always a little bit on the scruffy side, probably taking a page out of his father's book. He doesn't always take care of his clothes, but they're at least relatively clean, except perhaps for his Quiddich gear.

Mark is the son of Unspeakable Aidan Flynn. He believes that his father is at Hogwarts for the sole purpose of keeping an eye on him because he doesn't trust him, and the truth of the matter is that Mark can hardly blame his father for feeling that way. He hasn't done much to make himself trustworthy and his father is more intensely suspicious of him since he learned (and earned) the ability of animagus. He feels as though his father is always watching him, and it makes him uncomfortable, but he also knows that his father's suspicion is natural and understandable.

After all, it was Mark who set the fire that burned down his father's house, killing his mother and two younger siblings.

He's never gotten over the guilt. He might have found it easier if it had been a spark of his magic, either uncontrolled or intentionally breaching the laws of their society that had caused the fire, but it was something much simpler (and more stupid than that). Mark had been experimenting with Muggle smoking tobacco and had dropped ash onto the carpet of the home unknowingly, then left the house. It caught fire, and within an hour the people who had been left inside were dead. He wasn't there to watch the blaze, but he harbors the guilt of knowing that his father did. He's never told Aidan what happened, though he knows his father believes the fire was set and he was intentionally responsible for it. He's never been the same person since then, and he has worked hard to turn his life around and become a better man than what he might otherwise have been. But most people still see him as "that" Slytherin, or "just another Slytherin." He doesn't take it well at all.

Mostly Mark has thrown himself into his studies. Early on at Hogwarts he wanted to learn to become an animagus, and because the skill required so much study, he started very early on, even secretly working in his first year at Hogwarts. He has recently gained the ability to shift with success though it isn't something that he does often. Transfiguration is easily his best subject, however, and he has focused on it for so long that it has become an ingrained part of his personality. He's developed an embarrassing fascination with the Transfiguration teacher. Now, however, he's mostly turned his attention to the study of legilimency, wanting to learn what he believes will help him to gain an understanding of those things that still elude him. He's been working hard, but between his regular schoolwork and Quiddich, he's behind on the studies that he's trying to do.

Life hasn't been eventful for Mark since the fire. He lives with his Aunt Brigit when he isn't in school, and he tries hard to avoid his father wherever possible. He isn't always successful, but he tries to keep his nose out of trouble and to avoid giving his father any reason to think that he's up to no good. In truth, he's on the side of Dumbledore and the others who he sees as the "dogooders" as though he could possibly make up for his transgressions of the past.