Layla Dean is a muggle-born girl with bright green eyes and long, wavy brown hair with a small spattering of freckles over the bridge of her nose. Soon after she turned six, her parents were forced to give her up for adoption for various reasons, and soon after that, they disappeared. Luckily, Layla was quickly adopted by her muggle grandparents. She is a painfully shy girl, so she has a difficult time making friends. She only has one friend at the moment, an American born muggle named Ellie Danvers that moved into her neighborhood when Layla was eight years old. Due to Ellie's outgoing personality, she was determined to make friends with the shy little girl in her neighborhood. After working hard for several weeks to bring Layla out of her shell, they became the best of friends and have been nearly inseparable ever since. Ellie often tries to encourage Layla into making other friends, but Layla almost always insists that Ellie is enough. As Layla has a lot of difficulty interacting with others, she developed a deep love for all animals at an early age. Her father left her several books on magical creatures when he left her, and Layla is known to spend hours at a time in her room reading through the various texts about magical creatures. Her grandparents gratefully accepted and encouraged Layla's love for both all creatures and reading. In fact, her love of animals were a large part of her first case of accidental magic. She was only seven at the time and had been playing with the family pet, a slightly overweight tabby named Tibbs. She and Tibbs had been playing on the floor in the sitting room, and after a particularly adorable display from Tibbs, Layla had squealed in delight. As she did, the poor tabby's fur turned a bright, hideous, pink. It took hours to wear off, but luckily, her sweet grandparents were more amused by it than anything else. To this day, they still sometimes refer to the old tabby as "Pinky". When Layla eventually received her letter to attend Hogwarts at age eleven, she was initially anxious and hesitant to attend. She had no desire to leave her best, and only, friend to go somewhere completely new and full of strangers, but both Ellie and Layla's grandparents convinced her it would be a great experience. The deciding factor was when her clever grandmother finally explained how Layla would be able to see magical creatures from her books and even be able to interact with them. With that in mind, Layla was suddenly determined to go, despite her timidity, but she vowed to keep in contact with both her best friend, and her beloved grandparents.