Ira thinks he's a good person. He has a strong moral code, will defend what he believes is right from what he believes is wrong every time. He practices altruism in every area he can find a need for it, and holds himself to very high standards of helping people and the world, and leaving it better than he found it. He believes in equal rights for all people, all animals,is the most argumentative pacifist in the whole world. He volunteers his time (every summer, he tutors kids and magically improves impoverished homes. He enjoys this.) He's working on a career where he can serve people forever. In many other people, this constant desire to give of oneself might result in a too-sensitive soul or a bleeding heart. Ira's spirit and heart are firmly intact. There is nothing about Ira that is effusive or even very sensitive, and he views his goals and crusades as practicalities as opposed to any lofty ideals. Simply put: The world sucks and is unfair, so he wants to make it better. He doesn't consider himself to be noble-minded, nor does he beat himself up when he sees continued injustices. He's very practical about the idea that he's just one stupid teenager and may not actually affect any real change on any large level. It doesn't mean he'll stop trying. Once something gets into Ira's head as a "right" idea, it's very difficult to get out. He's stubborn that way, and many other ways.

All this could show that he is incredibly driven and goal-oriented. And he is, about half the time. The other half is extremely indecisive and variant. Years ago he decided what he wanted to do with his entire life and he's been shaping a life and personality around being a Healer. Now, Ira's not sure. So he goes through distinct phases. When he's set, when he's driven, there isn't anyone who can stop Ira from powering through marathon library sessions, long Quidditch sessions, workouts that break his spirit, and more. He could reach pinnacles of success if he just kept that up. But that's exhausting. All too easily, Ira falls into the trap of telling himself that he shouldn't try anymore, that he doesn't want to succeed at all. So he quits, lets himself go a little, lets his grade slip right down to the wire before he remembers that he can't let it go past a certain point. He hasn't yet. There's a real possibility for self-sabotage here, but Ira has a little too much guilt to ever let that happen. (Yet. Probably.) There are probably better ways to relax than to be hyper-focused one week and then a complete slacker the next, but Ira has not discovered the concept of moderation or balance just yet.

It doesn't help that his terrible life habits have become something of a fun game to prove that he's untouchable. (Spoiler: He might not be.) Ira's a king of getting things done at the last minute. If he's a legend at Gooseberry for anything, it's for cutting tasks down to the absolute wire and still coming out on top. He's scraped the very last point available for an A in many his classes, which is how he's maintained a 4.0. He's infamous for coming in at night at 9:59 sharp. Ira likes skirting the law a little bit, and when he can, he's cocky. He's like that about the rules in general; always skating just at the edge of breaking them, never really crossing that line because beyond it lies all the consequences he can't face. These close calls still help him relax. He looks and feels almost like a normal teenager when he skips an essay to hang out with a friend or go to a party. It all feels very new to him, but he likes it so far.

Ira's tricks for avoiding real consequences for increasingly not-ideal habits are good old fashioned work at the last minute, and a sort of preternatural resourcefulness. He's somehow always able to eke that last extension out of teachers, to be the first one at office hours and call in favors with more talented students who he could benefit from studying from. This is probably not an eternal resource, but Ira's using it while he can. Ira craves more structure than his life shows right now, but doesn't really know how to say it. It's a relief when other people manage his time, despite any pushing back or evading expectations he might do. He respects authority figures, but the tendency to push limits rears its head all too often, and he's no teacher's pet as a result.

Ira has never been a very popular person. Reclusive in order to meet his goals, defensive because of his belief in the five crusades he has going on at all times, he doesn't always find the company of others pleasant or necessary. On a day to day basis, Ira is not unfriendly, but he's a little reticent. Part of that is because he knows when he talks, he has the potential to get into arguments. (He'd be terrible on a comments section anywhere.) Ira may volunteer his time and spread his ideals, but his efforts are somewhat lost when he becomes so defensive about his own views that he's impossible to have a logical discourse with. His passion for human and animal rights could be much more effectively communicated with the ability to sit down and listen to other people's views. Instead, Ira can become argumentative and unreasonable when presented with views that he finds to be in direct contradiction to his own. It would be a sunny day on the dark side of hell if Ira Ashworth ever apologized for one of his deeply-held beliefs. He would, if he found with some reflection that he was sincerely in the wrong, or if he honestly hurt someone. It would be like pulling teeth,and probably hilarious.

Luckily, at Gooseberry, not everyone (or possibly anyone) is here to challenge how Ira feels about beef production or child labor. He's able to form lighter, easier relationships with people based on mutual respect. He can admit when people are better at things than him, and, dipping back to his resourceful streak, he knows when to shut up when he wants something or to learn. In acquaintances and his real friendships too, Ira's much more palatable. He's not argumentative for the sake of it when he doesn't feel like he has to be. He's a little more willing to showcase his intelligence, and he's just as interested in the passions of other people as he is in his own. He has a great capacity for love and care in him, and is just as unapologetic about that as anything else close to his heart. Ira probably has sent more letters home than maybe anyone bar homesick freshmen in any given week, and he will never once show the slightest amount of discomfort surrounding that fact. He places that kind of dedication into his friendships, too. His closer friends will find themselves the recipients of all of his considerable passion, and unfortunately, all of his tendency toward dumb disagreements. He will argue for friends who he knows are wrong, because they deserve that. So what if it blows all his credibility.

Ira exudes a lot of confidence, but he scrambles for it. He is exceedingly practical, to the point of being pessimistic. Everyone in the world has to work toward their goals. He knows that. But everyone around him has a niche piece of genius that he gets a little jealous of, when he sees it. Ira knows his place, and doesn't strive for a lot of glory. (That'll come in handy when being a reserve, too.) He just wishes sometimes he had more direction.He'll figure out, someday, that he might have to make his own, and that it might veer from the one he had when he was six. That's a challenge.

Mother: Miriam Ashworth-Halfblood. She's a magical anthropologist who retrieves and studies artifacts from ancient magical cultures. Sometimes she's worked with the Cursebreakers through MACUSA. Miriam goes out on the road a lot, but she brings the coolest presents back. Ira started writing her letters even before he was the one who was gone. They practically exchange weekly novels, now. Miriam is Ira's biological mother.
Mother 2:Ava Ashworth (née Schwartz)-Also Halfblood. She took Miriam's last name when they married so that she could bask in the alliteration, and she is. A former Potioneer, she teaches high school level Potions at Magical Maine Day, a charming K-12 institution where Elias still goes to school. She's always stayed home more with the boys, and responsible for the majority of the care packages Ira gets. She's Elias's biological mother.
Biological Dad: Bartholomew Hoffman; Halfblood. Ira's never met him, but he's seen the name enough times. Bartholomew was a friend of Miriam's from school who had good enough genes to provide two children and has since moved to New York. Ira has never thought to care about him.
Brother: Elias Ashworth; 15. (Born 7 months after Ira.) Elias is a thin boy; pale enough to constantly remind the people that he loves that he was sickly once. Ira worries about him a lot but tries to worry less than their mothers do. They still share a room when they're at home, so honestly, Ira being gone to boarding school is just fine with Elias, though of course, they miss each other. He is mostly recovered and strong, now, and tries to show everyone how fine he is by doing things like playing Quodpot and American football. Elias is quite frankly terrifying, but he's about nineteen times more charming than Ira could dream of being.

Miriam and Ava began dating because they were easily the smartest people each of them had ever met. It was really that simple. They met at a mutual friend's birthday party, not knowing he'd later turn out to be the father of their children. They were the last people at that party. They didn't want to stop talking or leave each other. They exchanged phone numbers, and they've been talking to each other since. They rushed into their relationship head first. It was the only way either woman knew how to do anything at all. Rushing, they moved in together, moved to Maine, and one day decided to each plan a child at the same time. They wanted to enable their children to grow up close and, possibly, more importantly, to navigate the more difficult stages of development at the same time. It sounded neater. In reality, this made for a blindingly exhausting approximately five-year period for the two mothers. Ira and Elias were eventually born seven months apart and were thick as thieves from the very beginning.

Sometime in the five-month period when they were both six years old, one of the boys fell ill. When Elias developed a nasty cough after being over at a friends' house for dinner the night before, Ava and Miriam thought it was just a cold. (Ira had, in fact, been similarly ill and had not participated in that playdate.) Elias's cough didn't go away. He developed a fever to go along with it, and spent the day shaking and freezing in bed. It took only a few minutes for the local wizarding hospital to determine they had no idea what this was, and sent him to New York City's Magical Children's Hospital for further testing. The young Elias slipped further into his illness. He became unresponsive, and it looked for a little while that the unthinkable might happen. It was only when Miriam's colleague Steve (whose son Elias had visited on that first evening,) developed identical symptoms that Healers discovered that on his playdate, Elias had come into contact with a cursed object (a little dog statue,) infused with dark magic so old that no one had identified it. Elias, being six and used to such strange things in his own home, had been playing with it all evening. The curse lay in the stone, and he had enough contact for it to find a foothold in the cold Elias was already contracting. It had been designed to gradually shut down bodies entirely, but slowly, preying upon the weaknesses they already had. The Healers found a countercurse for both patients, and neither Steve nor Miriam ever brought work home again. There weren't any more playdates with that family, either.

Elias remained in the hospital for several weeks after finally being diagnosed. Ira visited daily. It was an exhausting maze of a time for the small boy. He asked if Elias was going to die, but only once, before discovering what a bad question it truly was. Inquisitive from the very start, and so deeply worried, he cornered a Healer while left alone in Elias's room. The Healer sat little Ira down and explained what was wrong with his brother, and what they were doing to help him. No words were minced, no baby-talk used. This was the tiny contact that made him realize what he wanted to do when he grew up. The Healers made his brother better, and so Ira wanted to be a Healer. He announced this to almost everyone in the hospital over the next week. The adults thought it was very cute. Ira started looking at pictures of skeletons for reference that very evening.

Although he left the hospital, Elias couldn't play with Ira like they used to for a year or more after the initial incident. His lungs were hit first by the curse and would be weakened for years to come. Ira spent a lot of time inside with his little brother. They watched a lot of movies. Miriam's brother Josiah was in college Quidditch at the time. He rescued Ira from the house and his newly helicopter-status mothers at least once a week to play in the park. It was Josiah who told Ira that he had to keep strong by playing outside. Ira, now deeply afraid of illness in all its forms, took this a little too readily to heart, and started running and playing regular Quidditch at a very young age. He'd start weightlifting later on, and always was just a little too health-conscious for a child.

As time passed, Elias grew stronger and returned to school full-time. Ira had been there the entire time, of course, with a new zeal for his education. He became a very serious student from that time on, often skipping out on friends and more entertaining prospects because of the idea that he owed the world something for his little brother getting better. As the world opened itself up to Ira, he discovered what a kind of cruel place it could be. He got it into his head that it was up to him to make that better. And so began Ira's series of personal crusades. He stuck in school-level Quidditch, mostly as a Chaser. Other than that, Ira threw all of his time into volunteering with wizarding organizations. It was immediately after he first read an article about the effects of animal product consumption on the planet that he swore he'd never touch another glass of milk or steak, and he's been a vegan since about age thirteen.

His parents worried. This was a lot of obsession from such a small boy. But they also saw a conscientious, ethically minded young man rising up before them. And that wasn't objectively bad. They nudged Ira to get out of the house more, but he was pretty set in his goals. He didn't have a lot of friends in Portland. Even though he'd missed months of school, Elias was always the more popular brother. Ira had better things to worry about.

It became apparent in Ira's middle school years that the Magical Maine Day school wasn't going to be sufficient for Ira's ambition. The wizarding tradition of boarding schools had never been something Miriam and Ava wanted for their children. They hadn't gone; they were just fine. A teacher from Ira's school gently pushed the idea of Gooseberry at them all for the better part of six months. It would be good for him to get out, and it would look amazing when applying to pre-healer programs.

Ira was perhaps the most reluctant applicant in the history of the school.Leaving home seemed like too momentous a decision, one he wasn't sure he could come back from. Remarkably, or not really, as his grades and credentials were amazing, Ira was accepted with a scholarship. The last summer before he left for Gooseberry was fraught with indecision and a million unfinished rejection letters to Ms. Bloom. He didn't send any of them. Ira knew what this meant for his future, and knew he had to take the chance. His goodbyes were tearful on all sides when he finally left for Utah.

Once he was actually at Gooseberry, Ira kept up exactly who he had been, at least at first. He was here for a singular reason; he was going to be a Healer. Nothing could deter him from that goal. Gooseberry came close. Ira could relax there. He didn't have to worry about being perfect or a Healer right away. He could pull pranks. Go to Grotto parties. Stay out til curfew. He, of course, continued writing his family almost nightly; it's a habit he's continued throughout his school career and he'll never be ashamed of it. For the first time, though, Ira got to explore who he was outside of his goals.

The forbidden fruit tasted confusing. He liked how liberating it was, to skate on the edge of his scholarship and be a dumb kid, hanging out with his friends and procrastinating on his homework, for once. He even began doubting that he wanted to be a Healer at all. The problem with that, of course, is that he had no idea what he'd do instead. He didn't have any other outstanding hobbies or skills; that had all taken second fiddle to the pre-Healer end goal. At Gooseberry, Ira realized he barely remembered why he'd made that promise in the first place. It wasn't to pursue a different avenue. But he slowly found his academic perfomance deteriorating just a little at a time. Not too much. Never too much. He's always able to rise up at the last minute.

Though he's not really good at anything else, not like everyone else at this school, Ira's trying new things. A few. He tried out for Quidditch all two years in a row, but hasn't made a reserve spot until this year, and frankly he's grateful for a new goal. He's giving it too much credit and wants it to whip him back into shape, more mentally than physically. Another precipitant for that was the events of last year. They would've been a very good excuse to go back to the day school, to Ava and Elias. They wanted him to. He could've sat back in a world of lessened expectations and flourished.
Tellingly, Ira did exactly what he does to all suggestions to turn back, and refused outright. He's even joined Pre-Healer studies, though with some reluctance. He's come too far with this burden, this goal, to just drop it now.