The young boy is twelve years old, his birthday is on 28th of June. He is called Zachary Birch, but most people around him call him Zack. He lives with a friend’s family in London.

What’s probably most unusual about his looks is the missing eye. Instead of a second, piercing blue eyeball, he only sports a healed scar in his empty eye socket. But both eyes are half covered by his shaggy brown hair, dyed red in places, which hangs loosely into his face.
He has lightly tanned skin, nose and cheeks covered by small freckles. The student’s mouth is thin, pale and sallow, always giving his appearance a sad touch. He’s only seen smiling at rare occasions.
Considered as rather attractive is his muscled body; a youngster who has worked hard and been outside a lot.

Zack rarely tells anything about his past, probably because he wants to make a clear cut and start off new, forgetting his sad childhood which is still haunting him.
The boy grew up in a pure-blood family, raised by his mother, Patricia Birch, and father, Anatole Birch. His parents always thought of Muggles and Muggle-borns scornfully, lifting the race of pure-bloods high above the “mere Mudbloods”. The couple also tried to imprint these thoughts onto their son – and failed. Zack could never understand why his father used insulting words for Muggles frequently and protested when his mother cackled delightedly at the sight of Daily Prophet articles describing pranks on muggles like biting doorknobs or shrinking items.
When the youngster turned five, a girl moved into his neighbourhood, a Muggle girl his age, with huge brown eyes and auburn curls. Rose They soon made friends and dearly loved each other – until Zachary’s father found out one evening. He had come into the garden, humming a deep tune, when he saw the two children sitting on the lawn, playing with each other. As soon as the man realized what was going on, he let out a roar of anger, firing random curses everywhere in his rage. As he finally calmed down, his son’s eye was missing. But that loss was the least that mattered to Zack. Rose's eyes were wide. She had only been grazed by the curse, nothing that really hurt. But the shock was deep. "I - I thought magic was nice... and wonderful", she croaked... "I - I can't handle this!", She ran off. Whenever she saw Zack in the future, she turned her head away quickly, she never talked to him again. The fear in her eyes broke his heart and their friendship.
The parents convinced the Ministry of Magic that all had been a terrible accident, that in fact Zack, who was not yet able to control his magic, had been irritated about something the girl had said, and, in his anger, had cast some sort of spell which hurt him and his young friend.
When Zachary was let out of St Mungo’s in a right state of mind, he heard about the tale and desperately tried to set the record straight – but who would believe a five-year-old more than a grown couple?
From there on, the resentment in the house grew worse and worse, and parents and son drifted further and further apart. Mrs Birch refused to send him to a Muggle primary school. This only left one choice: Zack had to be home-schooled. He utterly detested those lessons, even though he did fairly well, he never got any good marks and was threatened to be caned at the tiniest mistakes.
At the age of nine, when he couldn’t bear it anymore, the boy ran away from home. His parents didn’t bother a lot; the child secretly believed that they were happy to get rid of the misshapen child which they so loathed. He sought refugee with a friend’s family. This friend’s mother knew what terrible treatment his parents could inflict on someone and adopted him with open arms. Being a honest boy, he insisted on working for his keep, helping the large family with the farm they lived on just outside London.
His letter to Hogwarts found him two years later, which delighted him utterly. He is looking forward to starting a new life at a new school.

In his free time, Zack is frequently seen scribbling in a golden, leather-bound notebook, in which he pens everything. Poems, stories, pencilled drawings, favourite words. 
The scholar isn't very good at communication with other people. He often needs some time for himself, to calm, to think, to sketch. He is often found sitting around, gazing at the horizon with misty eyes.