His name is Samuel Beechworth.
He's the Royal Boatman for Empress Emily Drexel Lela Kaldwin I, Ex-Boatman for the Loyalist, Retired Marine and Oldest Companion of The Outsider.
He is no Harry Potter, despite what Dumbledore will claim. He is no hero, just a side piece to a greater puzzle, and he's content to continue being such. He is no savior, if anything Corvo alone deserves that title. He is no boy nor has he been one for decades and while he lived, and still does, he didn't do it for them. He does it for himself.
Dumbledore does not seem to understand that; he talks of robes, wands, and Legacies that Samuel wants absolutely nothing to do with. He is a boatman and boatman's have no need for magic that would see then dead within an hour. If he was truly desperate he supposed he could use his birthmark but Samuel tries to avoid relying on it.
The boatman wants nothing to do with this world or their tournament but it seems Fate has decided to focus her games on him for a change as not even Erland can safely get him out of this. His magic is entwined with his soul and if torn out at his current age it will most likely kill him. If he does not participate, the Goblet will take his magic and in turn his life.
Fate hates him, Samuel decides.
He still refuses the wand, robe and legacy. He refuses to be associated with Hogwarts when Dumbledore wishes to announce him as their second champion; but he does not refuse a trip to The Hogwarts' Library. Knowledge is power and a library may as well be the Holy Grail itself.
He buries himself alive under an ever growing pile of maps, history, laws, politics, anything and everything he thinks can help. He scowls when Erland places a stack of books on Runes and Wards next to him but decides to look over them anyway; the deity rarely did anything without reason even if Samuel didn't understand it right then and there.
Corvo just watches him and Samuel knows the man wants to talk but isn't quite sure what to bring up first; for that the boatman is thankful. He's not quite ready for the discussion he knows is coming. And comes it does.
Under the darkness of the moonless night, Samuel says not a word as fingers guide over pale skin, tracing the birthmark with upmost care.
Dragons.
Black scaled, yellow cat like eyes, sharp bronze horns and spikes at the end of its tail. It kind of reminds Samuel of a lizard; a furiously, nestling, man eating lizard that just so happened to be capable of breathing fifty feet of- melt your skin off your bones and your bones to ashes- fire.
They want him to steal a golden egg from it; a golden egg sitting in its nest surrounded by its future offspring's.
Corvo all but mirrors his disbelief as the boatman stares blankly upon the heavy, man eating mass before him raging louder then the crowd around them. Samuel does the only logically thing he can; He sits cross-legged on the ground pulling out a piece of wood and his pocketknife.
He works diligently, ignoring the impatient whispers of the crowd as time passes: Ten minutes, twenty, thirty, an hour, two hours. Samuel doesn't really care about the time as he's absorbed into his woodwork.
The Dragon must no longer deem him a threat for by time he's done its covering its nest with its body mass, ignoring him entirely. He pockets the newly carved wooden dragon before walking out of the arena. Corvo and Erland are waiting for him in the medical tent, the Royal Protector holding a golden egg.
He's the first person in history to get a Perfect Zero in the Tri-Wizard Tournament.
Samuel doesn't really care; he's alive and whole with a brand new wood carving for Emily sitings smugly in his pocket.
The Wizards become rather fixated he gets a wand after that, blaming his poor 'preformacne' on the lack of proper materials. Samuel is rather stubborn himself but in the end he finds himself with a dark piece of elder wood, at exactly nine and three fourth inches, containing the heartstring from an elder river dragon . For some reason that upsets Dumbledore, who's rather insistent he's given a wand made of Holly wood containing a phoenix feather.
Samuel enjoys the sight of the elder wand maker tearing into the man about trying to force a wand on him without it choosing him. The boatman pockets his new fount wand in an attempt to forget about it but that's easier said then done when Erland keeps dropping aged worn tomes into his lap every hour on the hour. Samuel looks them over and memorizes the key points even if the boatman has no actually intentions of using the them.
As for the golden egg, despite its looks is only golden on the outside. The boatman wonders if its actually a weapon upon hearing it for the first time.
When he's not buried under a pile of tomes, Samuel takes up fishing for a past time. He crafts a makeshift fishing pole from a branch of a tree that attempts to take his head off and some wire he keeps in one of his jacket's pockets.
He's not quite sure what he caught but he knows its not a fish- or at least not any he's ever seen before and as a sailor he's seen a lot. Half human and half fish, but not quite a mermaid, it screeches sounding almost identical to the one from the egg.
Its furious, not that Samuel can blame it.
The boatman speaks in a calm tone as he works tediously on freeing the creature from his wire without losing any of his fingers in the process. Its not easy but he manages.
A ball.
It makes the boatman uncomfortable with how many girls, who are young enough to be his grandchild, ask him to accompany them with that look in their eyes. He lies and tells them how sorry he is but he already has a date.
He doesn't actually have any plans to attend- tradition or not. Instead he hopes to spend the time working on another Amaranth.
He's never truly felt comfortable on land and the idea of being able to escape out to sea- even if its only a large lake- whenever he desires is too much to ignore.
Only hours after he makes up his mind, Corvo asks him to the dance. He doesn't have it in him to crush that hopeful, pleading look in the younger's dark eyes.
It seems his new Amaranth would have to wait for another night.
Samuel doesn't like suits, he always feels as though they're trying to restrain him, one of the few reasons he never bother buttoning up his own vest. Though he suppose the slight darkening of the Royal Proctor's face well made up for the slight discomfort.
He spends his night trading hands around the dancefloor while ignoring whispers about his choice of date, and eventually settling down in the corner of the room with Corvo talking to a young Seer Erland introduced as Luna Lovegood and her date; Neville Longbottom. All in all, its not that bad of a night; one of his best actually.
Samuel raised a brow as he meet the younger's dark eyes.
"They tried to kidnap me. "
For a moment a strong silence filled the air as a sense of puzzlement surrounded the boatman.
"I beg your pardon? I think I'm losing my hearing. "
An amused glint entered those dark eyes at the elder's disbelieving tone.
"You're hearing is just fine Samuel but just incase you misheard: They attempted to kidnap me so they could use me as a hostage against you in their so called 'task'."
Kidnap Corvo? Samuel honestly didn't think anyone was that stupid.
Hostage? Yeah right, look at what happened to all the other people who tried.
What did they expect him to do, Rescue Corvo? Like Hell, Corvo didn't need rescuing. All Samuel would need to do is sit in his boat; working on another carving; while waiting for the Royal Protector to return on his own.
"Corvo, I don't think these Wizards have so much as a lick of logic or self preserving instincts between the lot of them. "
"Funny. I was thinking the same thing. "
A soft snort comes the deity as he glances up from his book.
"You two are just now figuring that out?"
They stuck children at the bottom of the lake.
Samuel's certain there should be something against that in the school charters but it confuses him about why the claim its 'someone he'd miss' as both Corvo and Erland are only standing inches away from him.
"Exactly who's down there for me?"
"Why, Ms. Ginevra Weasley of course."
Dumbledore sounds smug as if the name should mean something to him. It does but not in the way the man likely hopes for: Ginevra 'Ginny' Weasley was his worse stalker.
"In that case."
Turning on heel, Samuel heads back to the castle with the laughter of Erland ringing in his ears. Its nothing personal and usually the boatman would at least put in an effort but only the day before the young girl had given him chocolates which he in turn had given to Corvo and had to spend the whole day with a love sick Serkonian until Poppy managed to flush out the Love Potion.
Samuel wasn't sure what disturbed him more; Corvo professing undying love for a child or that said child attempted to feed a Love Potion to a man she didn't know that was old enough to be her Grandfather.
Dumbledore is disappointed and had Samuel been a child, he might have cared but as it is he couldn't care less. If they where uncertain of safety in the matter they shouldn't have stuck children at the bottom of a lake; though the boatman is surprised to find none of them drowned he deems its due to magic of some sort.
The boatman eventually gets fed up of the Headmasters constant attempts at guilting him and ask the man if he was so worried why didn't he jump to the bottom of a lake to rescue them? The wizard has no answer but gains a look as though he swallowed a lemon whole.
He doesn't care.
Dumbledore needs to find his way out of Samuel's life before the boatman finds a way to throw him overboard for the leviathan to devour. A part of him wonders if he could somehow convenience Erland to have the creature somehow locate itself into the Black Lake.
It would be rather entertaining to watch after all.
Then again, if it did no one would be able to leave the school and once Amaranth II was done, Samuel planned to sail to the other side of the lake to find out exactly what was out there- for surely this stone castle of a school and a narrow cobblestone street couldn't be the only thing to exist out there... Hopefully, if not and this really was all there was to this world, Samuel decided he would be moving into the void immediately rather then waiting for his physical body to die first as he originally agreed to.
Wouldn't Erland be pleased?
Knowing how childish the deity could be, he'd likely destroy whatever's out there- if anything at all- just to get the boatman there sooner rather then later. At that thought, emerald eyes slowly darted about half expecting the deity to appear out of thin air with that unholy smile that only came when he did something he know Samuel wouldn't approve of and void filled eyes. After a few moments and no surprise visits or sudden shifts of the void, the boatman allowed himself to relax.
A week later, the Amaranth II was completely constructed and baptized- using something called Firewhiskey a pair of rouge haired twins managed to smuggle to him- with her captain plus his usual passenger ready to set sail.
They leave at early dawn, before even the sun has a chance to rise.