Archie is a bright, curious kid who looks at the world like his personal sandbox. He's adaptable and loves surprises or new situations, and his eagerness to learn and discover makes him highly experimental. Lively company he might be, but Archie's ultimately very chaotic. He's much better at taking things apart than putting them back together. For instance, as a freshman, he stole several small electronics (cell phones, portable game systems, etc.) and tore them apart to see how they worked, with zero regard for their owner's feelings. Knowing Archie is equal parts productive and destructive, exciting and frustrating.

Archie is so preoccupied with his curiosity that he often says or does things just to test reactions. This leads him to seeming chaotic, or even inconsistent, as he has no trouble going back on things he's said or dismissing earlier opinions he held as inaccurate. Archie isn't reluctant to admit he was wrong. Although he suffers from low empathy, he can admit now that drugging the upperclassmen with Amortentia was a bad idea. However, it's a stretch to say he feels guilty. He can spin a half-decent tale about how bad he feels, but he thinks it's old news, and won't apologize again unless forced to. Archie's lack of guilt makes his mischievous nature challenging for authority figures. He might come off as gloomy and quiet, but he's much less serious than he seems. In fact, Archie can be outright silly. He's a forgetful space case with a wily sense of humor. Archie comes armed with plenty of sly asides and "fun" ideas, but often forgets things like what day of the week it is, and whether or not he ate lunch.

His playful and precocious bravery in the face of consequences has its limits. Archie deems certain punishments as calculated risks, and anticipates being caught or scolded even before he acts. This makes him extremely hard to discipline when he sees detention and point loss as simply the toll for having fun or accomplishing his goal. Archie isn't cruel, and he can even be fairly gentle despite his limited capacity for compassion, but he's known for being troublesome. The flip side of this is that when he gets into trouble for something he didn't anticipate, when he enrages someone, or when the consequences hit too close to home, Archie freaks out. He takes these instances very hard, and can quickly be reduced to tears when people (particularly adults) raise their voices at him. This can be shocking, since most of the time he seems impossible to frighten and unflappable in the face of detention. It's the one kind of surprise that Archie doesn't embrace.

Archie finds a lot of security in others. He dislikes operating alone, and can be clingy with the people he develops attachments to. He's affectionate, but fussy. When he wants attention, he's demanding, but then a fickle mood will come over him and he wants nothing to do with you. But even at his most difficult, Archie is a follower. He's drawn to people who can be a guiding force, overtly or not. Archie can come up with dozens of brilliant, interesting and even fun ideas, but he needs someone else to help him make them a reality, otherwise Archie never, ever will. He may believe he's calculating and in control, but there's a powerful current of insecurity in Archie that leads him to look for people who will tell him what to do. Long-term thinking is not Archie's strong suit. Planning anything more than a week in advance puts him in a tizzy, and sends him spiralling into a world of anxious what-ifs. When working with others, though, Archie is cooperative and enjoys collaboration. He takes direction well, and likes the satisfaction of creating something together. He's a surprisingly good team player.

But Archie is pretty socially inept. Most notably, he develops immediate obsessions with people who catch his eye, and seemingly falls head over heels for them within hours. This infatuation can last a couple days, or even as long as a few weeks. The more genuine his attraction, the longer it takes. Once he's found a target, he proceeds to stalk them across campus and take detailed notes on their behavior for analysis. This is all in order to help him decide whether or not he and his recent crush are compatible. Sometimes this goes as far as stealing things from them (school notes for a handwriting sample, a shirt they left hanging on their balcony, locks of hair, etc). The answer to "Are we compatible?" is inevitably "No", and none of his crushes have ever gone anywhere. In fact, if anyone ever reciprocated before he could kill the obsession himself, he panicked and disappeared. He always sabotages these non-relationships, be it by justifying incompatible personality traits and habits, or by way of more... unusual experiments. For instance, stealing a lock of their hair, running experiments on it, and determining that liver cancer runs his their family. "What if he contracts it and dies at 30, leaving me all alone? I can't go through that."

Archie often tramples peoples' boundaries, and has a poor grasp on what it means to show respect. He often acts entitled to their time and personal information. Invading peoples' privacy doesn't seem to bother him much, and he's poor at maintaining social niceties. He's polite only when it serves him, friendly only when he wants to be, and ices people out for being stressful or annoying. Sometimes he's needlessly critical and doesn't filter himself. While generally gentle and soft spoken, Archie is often very rude, and it's not that hard to tell he's secretive and distrustful. He's constantly overanalyzing everything and everyone around him, and has a very overactive imagination. He's a world class overthinker, and overcomplicates everything. This is most obvious when it comes to what a romantic he is. Archie has a lot of opinions about who's dating who, and most of those opinions are bad. He finds a lot of solace in fantasy, and reads drama into real live relationships and events even when there is none.

Despite his preoccupation with romance, Archie is terrified of getting personally involved with anyone. He has heavy abandonment issues, and lives in constant fear of rejection. He buries his insecurity under coy cuteness or precociousness, but has very little self-worth and thinks very poorly of himself. His crippling insecurity makes him feel like anyone who genuinely likes him is doing him a favor. His self-loathing is ugly and difficult to talk down, especially since Archie tends to turn it outward in unpleasant ways. He ruins things for himself before he can let too many people get close, and once they do get past his walls, Archie's got a jealous streak. He gets very attached to his friends, and is easily threatened by outsiders. You've got an obvious crush on one of his teammates? You're going to steal them away and he dislikes you. You're friends with one of his friends? They might love you more than him and he dislikes you. Archie's jealousy is usually pretty toothless, but it's not especially charming.

tl;dr
+ adaptable, loves surprises
+ curious, eager learner
+ cooperative, team player
+ social
+ playful, silly
+ romantic
= experimental
= soft-spoken
= opinionated
= spacey
- socially inept
- bad with boundaries
- stalker with a crush
- codependent, needs someone to tell him what to do
- self-loathing, insecure, jealous
- callous, remorseless, lacks compassion
- overthinks things, bad at planning

Professor Abraham Rose. Father, pureblood. Healer & Potioneer. Professor Rose is a highly respected figure in the Healing community, although he hasn't seen a patient in over fifteen years. He rose to acclaim with his research on how to use potions for tissue analysis, testing for diseases and genetic predispositions to them. At this point in his career, people send Professor Rose samples to his Michigan mansion for him to process in his home laboratory in Michigan. He can diagnose even the most difficult cases, and despite his reclusive nature, his opinions are frequently sought and his patented potions have made him a fortune.

As a father, Professor Rose is controlling. He rarely leaves the house he shares with Archie, and doesn't let his son go out much either. He keeps Archie's wand locked up unless he's under his father's direct supervision. What Archie is allowed to wear, read, watch or listen to is chosen for him.

Naturally, the relationship between father and son strains under Abraham's overbearing lack of trust or leniency. Any attempts Archie makes to exert some independence are met with resistance or punishment. Often it's accompanied by a guilt trip about how Archie's going to leave him, and how he's the only person his father has to depend on. Archie largely stays in line, though, and bends over backwards to appease his father. Abraham only allowed Archie to attend Gooseberry for the prestige, and has threatened to pull him out multiple occasions. He's critical, difficult to please, and suspicious. Living with him is walking on eggshells.

Agnes Nott, formerly Rose. Mother, pureblood. MACUSA policy analyst. Agnes was pressured to marry young, and at the time it had seemed sensible. Abraham was pureblood, wealthy, and successful, which were all very important qualities when she was nineteen and had just arrived in America. Ten years and one child into their marriage, however, Agnes left Abraham and Archie. She surreptitiously packed her things, left for work, and never came home. Abraham paints her as having abandoned Archie, and Archie's opinion of her is not great. It's easier to blame her than hold his father accountable for anything. Since arriving at Gooseberry last year, he began to receive letters from his mother. He's refused to read any of them, but hasn't thrown them out either.

Agnes had anticipated that once she had gotten out from under her husband's control it would be a simple process to get custody of Archie. Especially when Abraham's treatment of his family was so bizarre and controlling. Unfortunately, it's only in the last year that her attempts to gain custody of Archimedes have made any headway. Archie remains oblivious to the court battle that's been going on while he's at school.

INFANCY. Archimedes was born to a pureblood couple in an isolated wizarding community, who very much valued both of those things about their new family. Agnes was just nineteen, and her family back in Britain was pleased that she had found a proper match in the older, brilliant Healer. When he ended up being more controlling and paranoid than expected, they advised she be patient with him. Abraham had baggage, and relied heavily on his new wife for emotional support. He loved her a little too intensely, and resented her career, her family, he friends, her hobbies. Some of that was eased with the arrival of Archimedes, though.

The baby got them through about ten years of marriage.

CHILDHOOD. By the time Archimedes was nine, the burden of Abraham's mood swings and controlling behavior was too much. Agnes was worn down, but had friends outside of the home through work. They were people she could rely on to help her when she finally decided she wanted a divorce. Unfortunately, with Abraham working from home and keeping such a close eye on Archie, there was no easy way to get him out with her. From his perspective, his mother left for work one day and never came home. The last memory he has of his mother is her unusually long and nervous goodbye that morning.

Every day of Archie's life from the day his mother left to now looked about the same. The Rose's house elf was so old that all he tended to was the cooking, so the household chores fell to Archie. Cleaning, chopping wood, shovelling the snow, etc. All of which would have been simpler with magic, but Archie was underage and his father never assisted, always locked up in his lab working. Archie wasn't trusted with free access to his wand, which was kept locked away by his father. His father retrieved it for him each morning before Archie walked down the hill into town for school.

And so the years passed. Wake up at 6:00 AM, and fetch wood for the fireplace and stove. Set the table for breakfast, and after eating, clean the table and dishes. When he attended the local school, he would walk about a mile into town by himself. School was the exciting highlight of his day, but summer meant nothing but monotony. Go outside and chop wood. Begin cleaning the mostly empty mansion from one side to the next. At the end of the week, start all over again. Wash and hang the laundry. Spend two prescribed hours with his father in the laboratory studying potions, then one hour reading quietly under his father's supervision. Prepare the sauna. After the sauna, prepare the table for dinner. Clean up after dinner. Take one hour of "free" time, which could consist of drawing or reading an approved book. Go through the house, shutter the windows, draw the curtains, put out the fireplaces. By the time Archie went to bed, he was exhausted and had only maybe managed to sneak in twenty or so minutes of actual free time. No one was ever allowed to visit. The repetition made the days blend together.

Abraham kept his son extremely busy on purpose, and if Archie failed to be productive enough, it was grounds for punishment. More chores, often made up, would be added to his schedule. What scant privileges he had would be taken. He ranted often about how Archie couldn't be trusted, and that children will always go astray if given too much freedom. Archie, especially, he thought was prone to being weak willed and lazy. Everything was a sign that Archie was going to leave him like his mother had. Abraham made it clear he thought his son was a difficult child whom he wanted to trust, but just couldn't, and it was Archie's fault. Archie was always two steps behind what his moody father asked of him, constantly straining to live up to expectations and gain his father's approval.

GOOSEBERRY. The local wizarding school was a small one room day school, and Abraham made it no secret that he thought the education Archie was getting was insufficient. Angrily complaining about his teacher, an elderly witch who often expressed skepticism about Archie's home life, was a favorite topic over dinner. The alternative, though, was sending Archie away to boarding school.

Ilvermorny wasn't prestigious enough, but Gooseberry was. Archie didn't know what to expect, and was both excited and terrified about the prospect of leaving home for months at a time. That first year was more freedom than Archie'd ever had before, and he went a bit overboard. He joined every club, took as many classes as he could, and in a way became exactly what his father always feared he would be if no one was keeping him under control. Which is to say he acted like a kid. A poorly socialized, somewhat destructive, very curious kid.

Archie was enamoured by his classmates. What started as crushes became overbearing obsessions, although they were always short lived. Archie didn't seem to be able to do anything by halves. He couldn't merely be curious about cell phones, he had to take one apart. He couldn't simply think his classmate was pretty, he had to learn absolutely everything about her. He took to Quidditch with equal fervor, puzzling some peers with the realization that this very wizardy, pureblood boy knew almost nothing about the sport.

And then he started getting letters from his mother. They came in twice a month. He never opened any of them, but collected them in a box, sorted by date received. Despite the lack of response, they kept arriving like clockwork every other week.

THE AMORTENTIA INCIDENT. What Archie is best known for. Last year, Archie and a fellow freshman infamously drugged the entire student body with Amortentia. What his classmates know is that eccentric Archimedes created the "time delay" Amortentia, and that a second student, Scott Johnson (NPC), was the one who pushed him to test it on the student body. Archie, ever a follower, hadn't really wanted to go along with it but couldn't say no. Hieronymus "Hero" Lee, who was a close friend of Scott, found out about the plot and reluctantly turned in his best friend and Archimedes. The mastermind was expelled, but Archimedes was only suspended.

Which isn't really the truth.

The reality is that Hero, Archie and Scott were all equal participants, and if guilt is being quantified, most of it falls on Hero and Archie. Archie was the one who designed the modified potion, although he'd hoped that the results would be very different. He'd wanted the symptoms to be milder, perhaps even nonexistent. Archie was trying to nail down a version of Amortentia which could give people the euphoria and the complex smell components without involuntarily falling for whoever was standing in the wrong spot. In test runs that had been the case, but the sample size was so small. Hero had put together the rest of the plan, and before they knew it, the school had fallen into chaos. Everyone knew it was Archie. He'd been there handing out the "tea", after all.

Hero did a bit of quick thinking as the noose began to tighten around them. Archie, terrified of what his father would say, fell in line without complaint or guilt. When Hero told the teachers that it was all Scott's fault and Archie was a victim too, Archie's story matched his. And from there, punishments were doled out, and Archie was sent home for a two weeks to a furious father. Despite threats to pull Archie out of school where he could be watched, he returned at the end of his suspension. A bit quieter than he had been last month, perhaps, but ready with proper apologies and a newly cemented adoration for Hero. All anger aside, his father wasn't especially bothered by his son's callousness towards his peers. For his part, Archie doesn't question why his father let him return, or why Hero picked him over Scott.

LAST SUMMER. Over breaks, Archie disappears. He can't be contacted, helped by the fact that he doesn't give most people his address, and those he does are instructed not to write him. He leaves his journal at school over breaks, and over the summer entrusted Hero to hold onto some of his things for safekeeping. His journal, gifts people had given him, some things people definitely didn't give him, photographs, a binder that may or may not contain locks of hair, and the letters from his mother.

Archie is very closed lipped about his home life. If pressed about why he's not allowed to talk to anyone over breaks, he explains that father's old fashioned and the community likes privacy.