The youngest child of Adelon Ryder-Jones and Christopher Jones (a St. Mungo’s healer and muggle magazine editor, respectively), Heathcliff came into the world with huge expectations already upon him. Like his older siblings, he was expected to inherit the Ryder side of the family’s light hair, blue eyes, and confident Gryffindor personality. Instead, he got his father’s dark hair and dark eyes, as well as a shy, sensitive personality that didn’t quite match up with either side of the family. Because he differs so drastically from his relatives, he’s often unfavorably compared to his more outgoing siblings, and with the exception of his dad and his older cousin Zira (the only other non Gryffindor in the family), he has a hard time relating to his family. This led him to grow up feeling like an outsider in his own home.

Like all the Jones children, he attended a muggle primary school where he had trouble fitting in due to his magical abilities and shy, sensitive nature. In his early school years, he had his older sister Ariel to help him make friends and stand up for him, but she left for Hogwarts shortly before his eighth birthday. WIthout her, the bullying only got worse. Fortunately, it was also around this time that Heath discovered his two great passions in life, Star Wars and acting. The former he discovered while watching old movies with his muggle grandparents; the latter when his dad enrolled him in a youth theater program in hopes of boosting his confidence. Through the Star Wars fandom, Heath found a sense of belonging he lacked at home and at school, and through acting, he found an outlet for the parts of himself he had to hide.

Like his older siblings, Heath received his Hogwarts acceptance letter on his eleventh birthday. He was eager to join his sister but because of where his birthday fell, he had to wait nearly a year to start school. Then, just before he was due to attend Hogwarts, the school was closed and classes relocated to Beauxbatons for the upcoming term. Adelon believed starting school so far from home would be too much for Heath to handle, so it was decided that he’d be homeschooled by his grandparents until Hogwarts reopened. Heath was at first disappointed that he’d have to wait yet another year to start Hogwarts, but after reading his sister’s letters about her experiences at Beauxbatons, he realized his mother made the right choice.

Heath started Hogwarts at the second year on 1 September 2100. Although he hoped to be placed in Gryffindor like the majority of his family, the hat saw his natural inclination toward intellectual pursuits and placed him in Ravenclaw instead. Heath initially feared disapproval of his sorting, but to his surprise, his family was supportive… at first. Things changed later in the year with the appearance of the Hogwarts founders. Although Heath only encountered Rowena Ravenclaw personally, he was deeply shaken to learn of Godric Gryffindor’s attack on Professor de Nostredame. His disapproval of Gryffindor’s actions put him at odds with the members of his family from that house, particularly his older sister, who refused to believe her house founder would attack someone unjustly.

HIs family drama only intensified over the summer holiday when his father undertook a business venture that would relocate the family to Canada. Adelon refused to leave her job at St. Mungo’s, which led to the couple’s separation. Heath then had to make the hardest decision of his life: follow his dad to Canada and transfer to a new school or stay in the UK and limit contact with one of the only people who understood him. Fearing rejection at a new school, he chose to remain at Hogwarts, but it wasn’t all bad. His sister’s distance and his parents’ separation led to him developing a closer relationship with his brother.

Heath’s third year was an emotional rollercoaster. A strange weather event sent Hogwarts two hundred years into the past, causing issues with memory loss and transparency. Heath spent the bulk of the term thinking he and everyone else in the school had died and come back as ghosts. While the events led to a reconciliation with Ariel, the lack of contact with the outside world meant he was left to process the emotions that came with thinking he died at such a young age (and those of falling in love for the first time) on his own. He later learned that they weren’t actually dead but in danger of fading from existence and did everything he could to help find the solution to get them back to their own time. The experience caused Heath to re-evaluate his life and resolve to be more sociable, so he’d be remembered if he does die young. In some ways, he’s still haunted by those events, but he doesn’t want that to hold him back.