Isaiah Covington is not a particularly easy young man to get to know. The Covingtons are one of the oldest pure wizarding families in North America, and Isaiah is the oldest child of the current generation of Covingtons; and while pureblood culture is nothing like what it is in Europe here in the USA, he still feels a certain weight of expectation on his shoulders as a result, which in turn results in an almost compulsive need to be careful of how he presents himself. That most of those expectations are inside of his own head is neither here nor there, for Isaiah. He wants, very much, to come off as perfect: quiet, studious, well-behaved, respectful of authority.

What he really comes off as, sometimes, is uptight.

Some of this is self-defense; Isaiah was a sensitive child, which didn't always sit well with his hyper-masculine father, and as a result he's learned to hide his strong emotions behind a wall of reserve. Better to show nothing than to show vulnerability or sensitivity. He is almost always studiously neutral, preferring to mediate in disagreements rather than joining either side and going with the flow rather than offering opinions of his own. It's easier that way, and safer. His feelings are easily hurt, but you'd never know it unless you were looking very closely indeed.

Isaiah is a true introvert; large groups and too much time spent in public are hard on him, and given the choice he will always fade into the background. He focuses on things very intently, and gets far more enjoyment out of an evening spent reading or alone with his piano than he does out of a party, though if he's pressured into going to one he'll cave easily, stand by the wall the whole time, feel deeply uncomfortable, and sneak away at the first opportunity. Perhaps needless to say, he's a young man of few friends and even fewer close ones, and that's fine with him.

The Covington family is one of the oldest pureblood families in North America, and while they have no desire to compete with the traditions- and, more pointedly, the prejudices- of their European counterparts, they do believe that they have a duty to uphold the dignity of and provide an example for the rest of North American Wizardry.

Which is not precisely a comfortable situation for a sensitive introvert to be born into, especially if he's the oldest child of his particular generation, but that's the situation Isaiah Covington was born into nonetheless. There was a lot of weight there, or rather, it always felt to the little boy as if there was, a notion which Jeremiah Covington did little to dispell, thinking the responsibility would grow the child out of certain tendencies toward softness that the father disapproved of. Keisha was of a different opinion on all of that- Jeremiah said she coddled the boy, which was half of his problem anyway- but the family patriarch was of a much stronger personality that his wife, which made the whole situation rather fraught for young Isaiah.

Zay found outlet from those pressures in solitary pursuits, especially the musical; he taught himself to play the family piano young, and while he would have preferred to stay inside with it all of the time, at least when he was banished out of doors- better for a growing young boy, Jeremiah would say gruffly- there was plenty of room to find solitude there, too.

The Covington boys were taught at home for their primary schooling, and while this wasn't always an ideal situation, it worked out well for Isaiah. He genuinely liked learning and studying, liked the ritual and the routine of it, and he did well in a setting that allowed him to set his own, almost always accelerated, pace and dive deeply into the subjects that interested him.

There was no question where the Covingtons would go for highschool; after all, Gooseberry was designed as an exemplary institution, so it was only right that the boys attend, and besides, Uncle Mordecai was there. Isaiah would have gotten in anyway, on the strength of both his grades and intelligence and the relentless musical talent he'd spent most of the free time of his youth pursuing, but it was nice to have that little bit of nepotism to count on if need be.

Three years at the boarding school have done little to draw Isaiah out of his shell, though away from his father's overwhelming, gruff and rough personality, he's blossomed in his own way, becoming more confident in himself and less disapproving of his own personality and the things he always perceived as faults before. He likes the school, but he's also glad it's his last year, and soon he'll be able to really go out on his own and forge his own life. Even if that prospect is daunting as hell at the same time.