Growing up on a squonk farm does something to you. It’s unavoidable. Surrounded by histrionic magical creatures and little else, Griffin was walking on eggshells from a very early age. He’s moved through life on high alert, expecting everything he says to upset someone, somehow. To say he speaks at all times with caution is the understatement of the century. His words come slowly and quietly, either brief and to the point or ramblingly indirect – there’s no middle ground. On top of that, an absentee father, a runaway mother and an extended family allergic to talking about feelings has left Griffin an emotionally jumbled young man, ill-equipped to deal properly with his feelings. He’s very practiced, though, in giving the impression of being a happy, well adjusted teen boy.

For being on the quidditch team, Griffin is remarkably lazy. He likes to think it adds to his coolness quotient - an apathetic sort of lethargy; moving at his own pace - chill as all get out. Griffin would be wrong here. Aggressively lazy is a good way to describe him. Always looking for the easy route; the quick scheme. Searching high and low for it. Expending so much energy to be as lazy as possible that most of the time he actually winds up doing more work, in the long run. And he does it all at the last possible second. Griffin takes procrastination and elevates it to an art form. He’s not quite spontaneous, but he is in a constant state of fly by the seat of your pants.

Griffin’s a sweet boy, though. Emotionally distant but kind. Friendly in a hands off sort of way that precludes deep, intense connections. He’s also completely sheltered. Things other kids take for granted dazzle him. He doesn’t always get his friends’ jokes (but he always tries to laugh at them). Most problematically for him, he believes very firmly in the inherent goodness of people, and his naivety gets him every time. Griffin is incredibly easy to dupe. It’s taken more than a year at camping school for him to finally realize that maybe he shouldn’t be so quick to trust. It’s still hard for him and it’s a fact that embarrasses him deeply.

So, between the naivety and the willingness to leap before looking, Griffin spends a lot of time nosediving into disaster. Chief among these troubles is a tendency to go wild at grotto parties. On top of being reserved with his feelings, Griffin self-consciously thinks of himself as a “wide-eyed yokel,” and, self-conscious about this fact, he can be pretty shy. Alcohol, unfortunately, has become his method of loosening up – he believes it lets him “be himself.” It’s not a great way to be, especially at his age. And it’s not his only problem. Griffin makes a lot of bad decisions, because they seem like fun and he doesn’t know any better. It’s definitely self-destructive; Griffin’s method of coping with his myriad uncomfortable feelings. He launches himself into the sun instead of dealing with his issues in a healthy way. He is the Ur Azurcrest.

And every disaster is met with a ludicrous degree of stoicism. Griffin is sometimes so careful about how much he expresses himself that he comes off as unemotive - a trait picked up from raising squonks to avoid ruining another pair of shoes with their goo. He’s incredibly good at hiding his actual feelings and generally will not fight back against bad things happening. It’s nearly comical, the way he's ready to roll over and accept death at any given moment. On the surface, he is the most resigned fifteen-year-old on the planet. Apathy is his superpower.

But beneath all that is a lot of turmoil. Griffin was effectively given up by his parents. His aunt and uncle have been amazing surrogates, but the Flowers family still isn’t the best at providing emotional support. They’re a very traditional rural farming family. So Griffin's never talked much about how he feels abandoned, how he doesn’t quite fit in with his aunt and uncle and cousins. He’s never really been able or allowed to feel sad about all that. In general, he tends to bottle his emotions and sit on them. He hates talking about his feelings, because doing so turns him into a weepy mess. Griffin is, basically, a squonk masquerading as a human boy.

He’s brilliant, though, despite being so emotionally immature. Griffin’s got a real head for numbers. He’s a stellar student and when he slows down and looks at things objectively, he’s an excellent problem solver. Perceptive and quick thinking when he’s not busy being a complete mess, Griffin might’ve made an excellent prefect. He certainly holds his friends to a higher standard than he holds himself and it was actually something of a shock when he did not get a prefect badge this year. He’s still bummed about it.

Despite seeming dispassionate, Griffin does have things he’s enthusiastic about. He’s driven in school and on the pitch – a big fan of quidditch and quodpot. He’s pushy with his close friends when it comes to their academic performance and behavior. He loves science – especially astronomy – and is downright obsessed with the stars. Like most Azurcrests, Griffin’s a dreamer of big dreams. He wants to be an astronaut. A wizard astronaut. Does MACUSA have a space program? Honestly, even he isn’t sure. It doesn’t matter. He’ll get there, eventually.

➥ Dexter Su-jin Flowers. father, half-blood, 40, MACUSA "agent."
Dexter Flowers is an "agent" of the MACUSA. Is he a hitwizard? An auror? Not precisely. He does stuff for the government. And that's really all anyone needs to know. Dexter travels a lot and is rarely home. Presently, he is stationed in Seoul, South Korea, but that means very little - if he's active on a mission, he could be anywhere. Griffin hasn't seen his father in close to two years, now. He doesn't like to talk about his dad because people have a hard time believing such an outlandish description of a father who's easier to explain away as being a deadbeat.
➥ Cho Ah-sung. mother, half-blood, 42.
Ah-sung and Dexter were married and very briefly lived in the United States, on the farm. The strain of Dexter's job combined with the misery of living on a squonk farm meant the union was short-lived. Ah-sung returned home to Korea when Griffin was just two and has not made an effort to stay in her son's life.
➥ Simon Yong-hwa Flowers. uncle, half-blood, 40, squonk farmer.
Simon and Dexter are twin brothers. And, yes, they couldn't be more different, but there's also a lot of love between them. Which is why Simon took Griffin in without complaint. Simon treats Griffin like his own son, which is to say, he loves him, but he expects him to carry his weight around the farm.
➥ Humility Flowers. (nee Glattfelder). aunt, pureblood, 37, squonk farmer.
Hummie comes from old wizard blood, a Pennsylvania Dutch pureblooded family who has lived in the Lancaster area for generations. When she ran away with Simon, it didn't surprise anyone, but it still caused an uproar. She and her family aren't really on speaking terms, but it doesn't matter, because she didn't care for them much, anyway. Humility is the only mother Griffin's ever known. She's strict but compassionate.
➥ Autumn Flowers. cousin, 15. Autumn and Griffin have always been thick as thieves. They share a lot of interests and frequently conspire to escape farm work. Griffin is Autumn's best friend, and his absence during the school year has been hard on her.
➥ Forrest Flowers. cousin, 13. Forrest is very quiet. He likes puzzles. People frequently forget he exists.
➥ Winter Flowers. cousin, 7. Winter is weird in an artsy sort of way. She's also the only one of the kids that seems to genuinely like the squonks. Which makes her even more weird.
➥ Eun-jung Flowers. grandmother, half-blood, 68.
Grandma Flowers technically lives on the farm, but she's there very little, and can you really blame her? It's a squonk farm. Eun-jung travels a lot in her retirement. She's particularly fond of Vegas, and may be a bit of a card shark. Eun-jung and her husband - Griffin Flowers, Sr - spent forty years on the farm, though it had never been their intention to inherit. They did so, dutifully, when the need arose.

Dexter & Ah-sung
It all began with a squonk farm. Which is a shame, because stories that start with squonk farms are rarely terribly happy, and hardly ever an enjoyable read.

But I digress, the story starts with Flowers Farms in Lancaster County, PA. One of the oldest continuously running magical farms in the United States. The Flowers family raised a small variety of creatures, both magical and mundane but dealt, mostly, in squonks. Those sad, melting creatures are not easy to deal with by any stretch of the imagination, so the Flowers oftentimes had trouble keeping the farm family owned and operated. Everyone who grew up there wanted to get out; escape was the name of the game. And such was the case with Dexter Flowers, who graduated high school and left his mother, father and twin brother behind (as two more siblings had done before him) to go immediately into Auror training. And then, from there, other, more secret training. And after that was done, he left the country entirely.

Where did he go? It wasn’t entirely clear. His letters always arrived sealed in two envelopes, details blotted out. Sure, his family was sad, but it wasn’t like this was the first Flowers child to escape. And Dexter was doing big things abroad. Whatever they were. He was earning letters of commendation and medals for REDACTED. Pulling in the big bucks doing work in ________________. He was important, somehow? So, they were proud of him.

No one quite knows how Dexter met Ah-sung. It probably happened in Seoul. Maybe he was on duty - or maybe not. Maybe they hit it off at a bar or met by chance at the market. It might've been whirlwind or perhaps a slow burn. At any rate, they happened, and one day Dexter brought his new wife back with him to the farm. And he stayed. It seemed permanent – a fact that excited the rest of his family.

Dexter and Ah-sung settled into domestic bliss - as blissful as they could be surrounded by squonks, at least. The peace and harmony lasted a full year before Dexter was called away for work, once more. A “you’re our only hope” kind of deal. So he escaped, again. A month later, Ah-sung realized she was pregnant.

After Griffin was born, she tried to stick it out, but Ah-sung hadn’t signed on for an isolated agrarian life in a foreign country. Dexter’s visits were few and far between, and brief when they did happen, and although the rest of the Flowers clan was accommodating, Ah-sung refused to live out her days on a squonk farm. So, she moved back home to Korea and left her son behind in the States. Griffin was just two.

Early Life
Simon Flowers, Griffin’s uncle and inheritor of the farm, had already been filling in as father-in-absentia, and so when Ah-sung left, aside from the familial drama that ensued, it was no great burden to take him in. Griffin, for his part, coped poorly with his mother leaving him behind. But he was a toddler, and he had structure and support with his aunt and uncle and grandparents.

Though Griffin would never forget the fact of his mother leaving, the actual memory of the event and the time around it faded quickly - he was very young, after all. There was a divorce, though Griffin was far too young to be privy to any of it, and Dexter settled most of it abroad. Full custody went to Dexter, who, in turn, made Simon his son’s official guardian in his own absence.

You don’t really grow up on a squonk farm and have a properly happy childhood, though. It’s a lot of walking on eggshells, and from a young age Griffin had to be a certain way around the farm’s gross little charges. The Flowers family had always been a little awkward about emotions, too. Add onto that a set of absentee parents, and Griffin grew up a little emotionally awkward. Bottled up. He didn’t want for anything, precisely, except maybe to see his parents, but it was still rough.

But not horrible. He had friendship in Autumn and Forrest, cousins-turned-siblings, and eventually Winter, as well. Farmwork kept him busy; he took joy in pick up games of quidditch and, eventually, stargazing through a telescope his father gifted him. From time to time, Dexter would return from assignment for brief stints at the farm. Although Griffin was desperate to see and connect with his father, the emotional turmoil surrounding these visits was often more trouble than it was worth. Griffin remained wholly devoted to the idea of his father, the Hero, even as Dexter's continued absence put a strain on the rest of the family.

School
When the time for school rolled around, Griffin and Autumn attended The Honeylocust School, a magical day school that drew in Pennsylvania Dutch and other magically talented farm kids from across rural Pennsylvania. Even with that large of an area, the school was still microscopic in size, and rather poorly funded. Griffin was a remarkably clever boy, like his father had been, and, unchallenged, he quickly grew bored with school.

Griffin was particularly interested in the mathy sorts of magic: Transfiguration, Potions and especially Astronomy. His passion for the stars was immediate and intense. He devoured every book he could get his hands on on the topic. So voracious was his appetite for knowledge that teachers couldn’t help but recommend he be sent somewhere with more resources.

Simon and Humility weren’t quite for it. It’d be expensive to send him anywhere far away, unfair to their own kids, who were, each of them, similarly clever, and Griffin had never been outside of the very small bubble of Lancaster County’s magical community. They feared what could happen to a sheltered teenager. Griffin’s eagerness to get away from the farm was undercut by his surrogate parents’ reservations and guilt at the thought of leaving his cousins behind.

His teachers weren’t willing to let the matter drop, however, and when word got around that Dexter had come back from abroad during Griffin’s 8th grade year, they approached him. Dexter was much more receptive to the proposal. And because Dexter was receptive to it, Griffin, too, became abruptly very warm to the idea of going to a new school. A deluge of brochures and scholarship opportunities followed. Griffin sorted through a number of schools, eventually finding a strange little camping school in Utah. Smaller than Honeylocust, but with more resources, more activities – more everything. So he applied. And was accepted.

Going to Gooseberry
It was the first time Simon and Dexter fought in earnest. Simon reasoned that this was too much for Griffin and in coming home to play “the fun dad,” Dexter was setting his son up for misery. For his part, Dexter believed Griffin needed to escape the farm and Honeylocust to really flourish. He firmly believed he was helping his son explore his gifts. Griffin was confused and afraid. The Flowers family tended to bottle things like this up, and for once it was all fizzing over.

So, Griffin responded the only way he knew how: like a squonk. He basically collapsed in on himself, despairing. That put a pretty immediate, if temporary, halt to the arguing of the adults. After a great deal of prodding, his family finally got him to talk. Griffin didn’t want to upset anyone by going away, but he also wanted to make his father proud, and he didn’t know what to do. Simon took this as evidence that Griffin couldn’t cut it outside the farm community, while Dexter saw a need for his son to get away from the squonks. And since Dexter had the resources to pay most of Griffin’s way to Gooseberry, and since he, technically, was the actual legal guardian of his son, the decision was made to send Griffin to boarding school.

The first few weeks of freshman year were predictably rough. Griffin mostly hid in his cabin, behind his privacy curtain, between classes, eating very little and sleeping a lot, but he eventually found his footing and when he realized it wasn’t him his aunt and uncle were angry with, he settled down and finally started to enjoy school.

Gooseberry, it turned out, was just as amazing as his father had said it would be. Griffin was overwhelmed, not just by the school but his peers, as well. Everyone was so different and there were muggleborns whose parents owned computers and flat screened tvs and all the kids had cell phones and what the hell is the Internet?? His freshman year buzzed by, he excelled in his classes and over breaks his family noticed he was distinctly happier. Griffin had come to Gooseberry reluctantly, and by the end he hardly wanted to leave. When dark things started happening, he was worried his aunt and uncle would forbid his return, but he seemed fine, and MACUSA said it was safe. So, backed by the approval of Griffin’s father, he returned for his sophomore year.