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Verity Doran
Status:
Muggle-born
Birthday:
29 Jan 2010
Nationality:
Irish
Residence:
Ringaskiddy, Ireland
Function:
Second year, Gryffindor
Wand:
30,0 cm holly wood and dragon heartstring
Physical Description
It’s hard to say for certain what Verity looks like because she’s always in motion. Most people will say she’s a whirlwind of wavy brown hair and flailing limbs, jetting from one adventure to the next. When she pauses long enough to chat with someone they’ll notice her easygoing grin first, followed by her blue-green eyes and half-dimpled cheeks.

Mental Description
Verity is assertive, idealistic, sharp, independent, and dedicated. If she had to pick just one of those words to describe herself, it would be dedicated. All of Verity’s other core personality traits stem from her inner drive and refusal to back down from anything, be it a larger cause, a personal goal, or a relationship. Her history of being handed from one family member to the next has reinforced the importance of committing herself and keeping her word; she absolutely refuses to grow up to be like her flaky, unambitious relatives.

If a cause aligns with Verity’s personal values, she will throw herself behind it and will never, ever abandon it until the battle is won. As a newly-minted muggleborn, Verity has already found two major movements to stand behind: blood prejudice in the magical world and magical prejudice within her extended family. Once she has a little more time to adjust to the wizarding world, she’ll become heavily involved in the rights of Werewolves, Vampires, House-elves, and Centaurs. Above all she hates prejudiced people, she just can’t stand folks who think less of other people because of some socially constructed difference. She’s the type of person who will immediately burn a bridge with someone the second they reveal what she deems to be a discriminatory belief.

Biography
Let’s make one thing clear: Verity was not born into a cult. Okay, so, technically the commune was super secretive and, yes, there were lots of holidays that involved dancing around bonfires while chanting to the sky. And, no, they weren’t legally allowed to’ve built their yurts where they did, on the very outskirts of Ards Forest Park in County Donegal, Ireland. But it one hundred percent was not a cult because everyone was allowed to leave if they wanted to.

Like she did. Sort of. She hadn’t left so much as she’d been made to go ‘cause she complained too much about unschooling and mushroom foraging and rules that made no sense. Anyway, the point is, everybody, including her Mum, Emily, thought it’d be best if eight-year-old Verity went to live somewhere else. So one day her Aunt Liv picked her up and drove her all the way back to Cobh. Which was, like, fine. Devlin and Noah -her cousins, one year older and one year younger -were fun enough, except for the fact that they’d rather play lame sports than go on adventures. Uncle Sean was nice, too, when he wasn’t cranky from working at the Navy yard.

But it was fine. Really. Like, totally not boring beyond all belief. Except for when it was. So, after a year of feeling bored out of her skull, who could blame Verity for skiving off school to go to the harbor or the park or literally anywhere else? Nobody. Except Aunt Liv. She was fuming. Which is how Verity wound up spending all her free afternoons at Gran and Granda’s house across the way in Ringaskiddy. Now that place gave a whole new meaning to the word ‘boring.’

The more time she spent with her grandparents, the more Verity itched to be free of them. Her adventures got longer. And way more frequent. It took about six more months for the adults to start tossing around phrases like ‘drastic measures’ and, gulp, ‘homeschooling.’ The incident with the mushroom casserole was the absolute last straw: it was time for Verity to go live with her grandparents. Permanently.

First Instance of Magic
“Aunt Liv? I’m home!” Verity scrunched up her nose. Ugh, could she have sounded more fake? Honestly, it would’ve been easier if she’d waltzed through the front door yelling ‘I skipped tutoring again so I could spend the whole afternoon hiding in trees pretending to be talking squirrels!’ At least that would’ve been true. Being named in honor of honesty sure did make a person feel bad about lying.

When no answer came, Verity eased the kitchen door shut behind her and slipped off her trainers as quietly as possible. Aunt Liv must’ve been upstairs hoovering the dust ruffles. It was Thursday, after all. She tiptoed across the linoleum, hoping against hope that she could make it up the back stairs before she got roped into helping with dinner again.

Two steps in, Verity froze. She hadn’t noticed it at first, what with the open door and all, but without the outside air sweeping through the room there was no hiding the earthy, disgusting stench. Mushrooms.

It was the stupidest phobia in the world. Genuinely the worst. Like, you could never talk about it. Someone would say ‘Those Freddy Kruger movies scared the daylights out of me!’ and then you’d have to go, ‘Oh yeah? But have you ever seen a mushroom? They’ve got gills.’ Talk about mortifying.

Almost as mortifying as breaking into a cold sweat the second you smelled them cooking. Verity’s teeth chattered -genuinely chattered -as she fought back the bile rising in her throat. She couldn’t do this again. It was hard to say what she dreaded more, Aunt Liv’s lecture about ruining another perfectly lovely meal or Devlin and Noah sneaking toadstools under her pillow.

Verity doubled over, gagging. Yeah, no, the second thing was way, way worse. As she fought to catch her breath, she found herself staring at the oven, praying for some sort of miracle to spare her from a fate that was one hundred percent worse than death.

A lick of flame sprouted at the corner of the parchment paper covering the casserole dish. At first Verity was certain she’d imagined it. It was wishful thinking for sure, ‘cause there was no way the casserole would just, like, catch fire.

Except that it totally had. Verity stared, slack-jawed, as the flames grew bigger and bigger behind the oven door till they were all she could see, all she could smell. No more mushroom sweat crawling up her nose. Just -she sucked in a great lungful of air -“FIRE!”