His clothes, when not wearing the school uniform (which is just about all year except the opening feast), tend toward colonial styles, as his mother believed these were the height of modern muggle fashion when he began attending Salem. During the summer, he does relent an wear muggle shorts and shirts, but only because he lives in the muggle part of Boston. The buckled shoes and tricorner hat are worn even with the school robes and muggle clothing.

When in class, he will, at moments of neccessity, wear a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles to help him see the board, though they would disappear the moment he finished copying the words written there.

He is completely clueless about any sort of relationships beyond friendship. Girls are just people to be friends with (which is good, because there's a severe shortage of guys to be friends with). Dating is, to his way of thinking, a precursor to marriage, and therefore something he has little use for. This is, of course, subject to change should he realize that he likes Gabriella and Gabriella likes him.

He takes Quidditch very seriously. Talking to, apologizing to, or helping the other team in any way is completely anathema to him during the game. He considers injuries and foul moves as a normal course of play, and has no qualms against inflicting or committing them.

However, during his third year, Derry testified in the murder trial of Ellie Santavaj and earned the wrath of DP1 by making a remark under oath that might have reopened two unsolved murder cases wherein DP1 was the prime suspect (and guilty party). This began a flurry of activity from his favourite elder cousin, Amelia, who was determined to see that Derry did not go the way of Kay Love, Magnolia Pierce, and Rubert Pierce (the murder victims). For this she recruited the help of their mutual cousin, Belinda, while she sent Derry to hide in muggle Boston over the summer. (Entering the muggle foster care system as an amensiac named David Doe.)

Thus, Patrick Baker became Derry's foster father for three months.

During the Pierce family reunion, an event that takes place annually for two weeks in August, DP1 was killed - non-fatally stabbed by Belinda and finished off by Amelia - but not before two other Pierces, Natalie (his wife) and Arnold (Amelia's brother) also died. This resulted in an internal battle for the family Patriarch/Matriarch position.

With DP1's eldest son, Rubert, dead, the three candidates were Rubert's widow Druscella, Rubert's younger brother Thaddeus, and Rubert's eldest son Derwent Pierce the Second (Derry's father and hereafter known as DP2). Druscella came out on top, having the support of the conservative family members while the moderate ones were split between the other two.

This was all well and good until Derry hit a bludger at Laticia Luzaiya during the Aether-Caelum quidditch match. This prompted her to make a decision about the three most liberal members of the family - Derry who was a Caelum and who attacked a daughter of the Luzaiya family, Amelia who killed DP1 and refused to marry, and Belinda who was overfond of beating people up with her bare hands. She split them into a side branch of the Pierces, and disowned them from the New Hampshire branch.

Thus were the Boston Pierces born. Amelia adopted both Derry and Belinda, and the three now live in an apartment in Muggle Boston.

His biological parents, who no longer acknowledge him as their son, are expecting a baby boy soon.

-Has a crush on Gabriella that everyone but himself and Gabriella know about.

-Adores Professor Strix.

-Quidditch Captain of Caelum, Beater.

-Part of the Gremlins (a group of 4 students; himself, Til Less, Drake Benton, and Sydney Roseman)