Name: Erastes Blake
Age: 34, although his appearance is more in keeping with a 20-year-old
Former House: Ravenclaw
Sex: Male

Erastes Blake was born of mixed descent, his mother being a Witch and his father a Muggle. Like most British wizards, he was enlisted at Hogwarts at age eleven and proceeded to go through a relatively normal (by Hogwarts standards) tenure in education. For the most part quiet and scholarly, he fitted in well in House Ravenclaw. Although he was attacked by Grindylows while swimming in the Lake during his third year, the rest of Erastes' time at Hogwarts was remarkably accident-free. Transfiguration was by far and away his best subject, though in his later years at the school he proved to be quite adept in Occlumency and Legilimency. Towards the end of Blake's education, however, turmoil was starting to engulf the country as Lord Voldemort was making his first bid for power.

Following his graduation after studying to NEWT level, Erastes surprised most of his teachers by joining the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and beginning training as an Auror. Many would have considered this a deeply unwise decision given that Voldemort was at the height of his power at the time, and Erastes had never scored particularly impressive results in Defence Against the Dark Arts. What he was good at, however, was investigation. He served as an intelligence analyst for the ministry in its attempts to hunt down the Death Eaters, observing behaviour and identifying those who had succumbed either forcibly or out of choice to Voldemort's will. This line of work made him a particular thorn in the side of the Death Eaters, and during one raid on the Ministry, a vampire loyal to Voldemort's cause decided to rid them of the problem Blake represented by turning him into one of the bloodthirsty undead.

Blake's vampiric "Sire" believed that the Ministry would just destroy the former Auror when they found him, rather than risk him harming anyone. If Erastes was lucky enough to escape the Ministry stronghold, it was expected that he would join the Death Eaters, who could offer him all the blood-soaked violence and savagery that his vampiric hunger would be demanding. It never occurred to them that Blake might actually try to resist his murderous instincts. Following his transformation, the new vampire spent some time chained beneath the Ministry, attempting to convince his former bosses that he was still loyal. Eventually they released him, and he was kept on in his former post as an analyst, though the existence of a vampire within the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was something of a dirty secret. As a result, Blake was swiftly relocated to the Unspeakables, and later the newly-founded Wizarding Intelligence Agency.

Since his transformation seventeen years ago, Blake survived Voldemort's second ascension and subsequent defeat, managing to remain loyal to the WIA despite contending with his violent, predatory nature. Although he is still primarily an intelligence analyst, Erastes has spent more and more time on assignments in the field rather than behind a desk in his quarters beneath Knockturn Alley. He has amassed a tremendous degree of theoretical knowledge on the Dark Arts, and as a minstry operative he has license to perform certain dark magic in pursuit of his duty. Despite this, Blake tends to be very hesitant to resort to dark magic in combat, as he prefers to keep himself as seperate as possible from the dark wizards he fights against. He has, however, spent a good deal of time familiarising himself with the supernatural powers inherent to the vampiric curse, and in addition to the tremendous strength, speed and resilience possessed by all vampires, Blake has also learned how to grow his fingernails into lethal claws sharp enough to carve through steel, as well as how to transform his body into insubstantial smoke (at least for short periods of time).

Erastes has dedicated much of his "life" since becoming a vampire to fighting the monstrous urges within him. For one of his kind he is exceptionally restrained, feeding on animal blood for the most part and preferring willing "donors" when feeding on humans. He only willingly resorts to draining humans when their death is already inevitable, though there have been occasions down the years when his instincts have gotten the better of him. On those occasions when Blake does allow his predatory side to come to the fore, he indulges in acts of utter monstrosity as he vents his normally suppressed instincts. He tries to keep such times few and far between, though showing restraint has become more difficult as his work for the WIA has placed him in ever-more-frequent combat situations.