----------------------------------
Faceclaim: Maarten Convens	Male | 14 | Pureblood | Portuguese/Italian | Fourth Year KHEANU MARAVILHO MONDELEZ "Your discomfort fuels me. I unsettle you, and that's exactly how I like it."
----------------------------------

APPEARANCE

Durmstrang Institute is a wizarding academy that values propriety along with hyper-masculinity and strength in its boys (though, most times, it does extend to females, as well). Kheanu aims to toe this line. Contrary to the norms the school imposes on its male population, the Mondelez boy actively chooses to emphasize his delicate limbs, pale pearlescent skin, and feminine features in everything that he does. His wavy locks, shoulder-length before entering Durmstrang, fall far down below the waist of his school uniform--the red material it was made of, stark against his strawberry-blonde hair and nearly-translucent skin. Clothes have to be sewn to fit his lithe frame lest the standard sizes drape poorly over him. The curve of his waist and the lines of his shoulder cascade beautifully into a delicate triangle among his fashion choices, furthering his androgynous appearance.

PERSONALITY

Whether by nature or nurture, Kheanu simply likes flustering anybody he comes across; knuckleheaded jocks, most especially--and there were a lot of that at Durmstrang. His appearance usually draws many of said people to him and he adores watching them question their identity under his piercing, clear-eyed gaze, or bluster in front of him as he breaks their tiny little hearts to even tinier little pieces. He especially likes the times when they confuse him for a female--playing the shtick up dramatically before tearing their illusion to shreds in his most mocking, cutting tone. His crowd of adoring fans saves him the bother of being bullied for his weak external appearance so he doesn't mind stringing them along.

He already breaks so many conventions and he isn't afraid to do so, some more. Many people approach him with an idea of who he is in mind already--and the Mondelez boy squashes them under his heel as they watch. Some see his beauty and underestimate the brain. Some people see his seemingly-fragile stature and underestimate the savagery and brute magical strength that hides behind his eyes.

Some see the beautiful, alluring prey and forget the predator.

Having an opinion of Kheanu before even meeting him will be the first--and last--mistake anyone will ever have.

The fourteen-year-old boy is one who favors talking in a honey-sweet voice, his insults and mockery hiding discreetly behind his drippingly-saccharine timbre. The Mondelez boy does everything he does as if a spotlight was constantly beaming on him--and in some way, it was. No one was safe from his peculiar appearance and his puzzling attitude.

Similar to a Venus Flytrap, Kheanu lures you in and snatches you right up in his fingers to manipulate in whatever way he wants when given the chance to do so.

BACKSTORY

"You're useless!"

"You're nothing if not for your family."

"You're too soft!"

"Why can't you be like a normal boy?"

These are words that Kheanu grew up hearing from his young peers all throughout his early childhood, and in time, the boy found out his parents have no attention to spare to deal with the dalliance and sufferance of their second child. At his young age, he had thought this fair. His parents had a business empire in Portugal to manage and his older brother--his only sibling--needed the extra attention for his future place on that throne.

The boy was glad.

He was indeed useless, nothing if not for his family, too soft, and not like other boys. But he didn't have to meet anybody's standards. It was his poor brother that had to be poised, proper, and perfect. Kheanu saw the burden put on Nikolai and he thanks his fates for not subjecting him to the same rigid limits as he does. He loved his brother so much, and looking at the older boy who was growing up to be a mindless clone of his parents was not a pretty thing. Nikki was more than that. He was witty, funny, and always said Kheanu was perfect just the way he was: delicate features and all. He wouldn't know it yet but his parents have taken the light out of the older boy's eyes. All he knew was that Nikki didn't really see him all that often recently and whenever he does, very rarely, he wasn't really feeling well--at least, not enough to laugh that loud anymore.

All Kheanu knew was that he didn't want to be in his brother's shoes.

Though unconscious of it, the lithe boy did starve for attention because of this. And over the years, he found out where he could acquire it.

You see, as Kheanu grew, so did his ethereal beauty. Granted, his family did not miss out on the genes department, but the otherworldly appearance the boy held only grew ever striking as time goes by.

As if by magic, those children who have uttered cruel words to him started to bend under his clear-eyed gaze, going so far as to do anything just to get his approval. It didn't matter to him that most of these were boys, all he was focused on was the power he held in his hands at that very moment. It felt good having them in the palm of his hands, and it was much more enjoyable when he gets to step on their egos and self-esteem on his refusals to honor their efforts with his precious attention.

These boys, once tormentors, will do everything in their power for him--disappointed, gutted even, when refused his approval. What once was the thing that they bullied him for, was now his greatest weapon.

He was useless. He was nothing without his family. He was too soft. He was not like other boys.

And they loved him for it.

They craved for him to love them back.

All of it. All of them. All for him.

And what a terribly awesome power it was to hold.

Kheanu didn't need an empire to level cities. His smile, his laugh... his beauty, was enough to get him what he wants.

Durmstrang, his father's wizarding school and the wizarding school of his family for generations, wasn't ready for him.

Quidditch Player? No. Definitely not.

Approved

Kheanu Maravilho Mondelez
An Otherworldy Vision in Blonde

STATS
Stamina: 10
Evasion: 0
Strength: 0
Wisdom: 12
Arcane Power: 13
Accuracy: 10

LOVELY CREATURE

Reducio

When Kheanu walks into a room, people cannot help but stare.

Already, in the early stages of his young life, this trait was well on its way to manifesting--an otherworldly vision in blonde he was starting to become. The boy was the nephew any aunt and uncle would spend a fortune on Christmas gifts for, the star of every family gathering, and the envy of cousins and strangers alike.

Some say it's genes, some say it's fate--but everyone can all agree on one thing: Kheanu Maravilho Mondelez is beautiful.

For most of his formative years, this has proven to be quite an asset. He was always the most well-liked kid in his muggle classroom--both by his classmates and teachers. The boy can get away with murder if he only flashed his brilliant smile right after. But as young as he was, Kheanu was just pleasantly happy they were paying attention to him.

At that age, with his background as a second child in a family of business moguls that has already born its heir, the boy was already aware he wasn't going to get it from home any time soon.

So he lived vigorously through the attentions of his peers. And when Kheanu realized the profound effect he had on people, he just craved it more and more.

Now, with his long hair, delicate limbs, and soft-spoken honeyed voice, the boy garnered notice like a burning flame to a flight of moths. Kheanu regularly used his ethereal, androgynous appearance to coax a reaction from strangers--both male and female--delighting in the deliberate way heads turned and eyes narrowed when he walked past. It afforded him certain advantages his other unprepossessing peers at Durmstrang would otherwise not have.

Everyone played into the palm of his hands--and he wouldn't have it any other way.

Most people were skeptical of beauty even when they fall under its spell--they see beautiful creatures as feeble and fragile.

But that's what Kheanu wants them to think.

Because behind his soft words and delicate appearance was a formidable spellcaster and a ruthless tactician. A master manipulator, the boy is not above using his appearance as his greatest tool--people satisfying his whims with only his bright smile as sufficient reward.

Kheanu read about carnivorous plants once, in his family home's vast library. He learned about how they attract prey with their sweet scents and inviting appearances; how it was only when it was too late that their victims realized they fell wholly and cleanly in a trap born out of their own folly.

And he thought it was wonderful.

TERRIBLE PRESENCE

Reducio

People would not know how to explain it, but there is something about Kheanu Maravilho Mondelez that unsettles them.

A boy of unusual beauty, the second son of the Mondelez empire takes otherworldly to a whole new level. There is this certain presence--a sort of unseen vacuum--that emanates from the teen when he crosses the threshold. It causes a very confusing sensation--most who notice his presence do not know for sure whether to take him all in his glory or avert their eyes from his stark beauty and intense, icy gaze.

Kheanu was so inexplicably beautiful, and it scares all of those that lay their eyes on him.

Of course, the boy was aware of this--and he revels in all of it.

He rejoices in every reaction his appearance can invoke in the people who surround him--whether positive or negative.

Let them swoon in his presence and let them cower under his gaze. Let them leave with a broken heart or let them leave in a daze.

Whether he liked to acknowledge it or not, it was all born out of the neglect he suffered from his parents. Sure, he was all provided with more than he could ever want, and was cared for by more than enough people under his family's employ--but he never got what a child innately wanted in his younger years: the love and attention of his mother and father.

There was a hunger--a craving--for his parents' acknowledgment. However hard he tries to ignore and deny it; it was there. It was as much a part of him as his pulchritude. And if not for his uncharacteristically loving and patient older brother, Nikolai, Kheanu would have resorted to more self-destructive ways of gaining his parents' attention.

As it stands, the boy now capitalizes on the face he was born with to win over other people, and so far, he has been highly successful. Though he attends a wizarding school that values masculinity, Kheanu deliberately sets himself apart, favoring neither a male- nor female-presenting appearance (and especially likes making people question their sexuality).

They say people fear what they don't know--that people fear what they do not understand.

Maybe that was why Kheanu shakes them so.

And they were right to be cautious.

Because behind those bright eyes and perfect teeth was a boy who knows what he's doing, and a boy who is not above using it to his advantage.

A predator's mind in a prey's alluring body.

EVASIVE MANEUVERS

Reducio

For someone so adept at avoiding his personal problems, it comes as no surprise that Kheanu Maravilho Mondelez is excellent at dodging incoming attacks from his foes.

Though, to be more precise, it might be appropriate to credit it to his family's Foil fencing background.

You see, the Mondelez, for countless generations, has cultivated its renown for the fencing arts. It is something quintessentially European, and Kheanu's ancestors may have been part of the pioneers of the art. Both of his parents were masters of the form, and Kheanu can confidently say this was one of the few things he was better at as compared to his older brother. But although he has bested Nikolai at their countless practice runs in their parents' presence, none of his talents received more than the customary curt nod of his mother and father.

In hindsight, this definitely affected the boy for countless years to come--having nothing worthy of acknowledgment from his parents. Not even the one thing he was better at than his brother--their favorite child.

Foil, as a fencing art, required its practitioners to be just as excellent at dodging as they are at aiming. Only the torso can be a valid target in this form of fencing: not the arms, not the legs, and definitely not the weapon hand.

As such, it is not really surprising that some of the most well-renowned wizard duelers in Italy were Mondelezes.

Not only did the sport hone your accuracy and focus to astonishing levels, but it also built your skill of outmaneuvering your opponents. It was a practice worthy of being treasured, as accuracy and evasion constitute a significant part of the recipe to be a great wizard.

For the foreseeable future, one would be able to note a certain gracefulness and sword-fighting-like quality to the way Kheanu casts his spells, whether offensive or defensive. His spellcasting stance--body in a straight line relative to his opponent--is reminiscent of his fencing form. As such, he reduces his size as a target, making it easier to dodge any incoming attacks.

Of course, it helps that the boy possesses a tall, lithe build--more graceful telephone pole than not.

For all intents and purposes, Kheanu is a challenging target to hit, and--people will know soon enough (and a little too late) once they fall on the other side of the boy's wand--a formidable opponent to face off against.

To note: Kheanu is still ic too young to fully-identify as a genderqueer/nonbinary individual so the language and pronouns used are masculine.

Approved

Sofia Bucur Age: 14 Year: Fourth Blood Status: Pure Height: 5 foot (1.524 meters) Weight: 99 pounds (45 kilograms) Nationality: Romanian

Appearance

Sofia is a very small girl, standing at barely five foot (1.524 meters) most of her peers recognize the top of her head more than they recognize her face. Speaking of her face, she is often smiling. A pair of green eyes set in tanned skin, she enjoys spending time outside even in the cold weather. In fact, winter is her favorite season because she says she loves the heavy wooly jackets she gets to wear and the cozy knit sweaters she can snuggle in.

She has long brown hair that is often seen down or in a single neat braid. It reaches about mid-back and is not often adorned with anything in particular. Many of her compatriots could care less about aesthetic and baubles, too serious for her tastes but wishing to conform herself she does not bother adorning herself. The only exception, a bracelet she hides under her sleeve. A gift from a boy (an iNPC is a fine source but undefined presently and may never be) that knew she liked 'pretty things.'

Her attire is what is expected of a Durmstrang student -- their school uniform when in classes and when in school functions. She wears hers with intense pride. When she is not in class, she still plays the role understanding the importance of appearances. Hygiene and practicality both important to her, her softer nature still comes through even when in compliance. Gravitating towards softer colors like pink, pastels or even white with the military cut many of her peers are so fond of.

Personality

Externally Sofia appears to be rather friendly and cordial. She is sociable and can often be seen smiling. Despite her affable appearance and her lack of social anxiety, in truth the girl is scared of most things. Smaller than most of her peers, she lacks the martial power to stand along side them. Not due to illness or a malediction but rather simple genetics, even if she is a stand out in her own family. Her parents, both rather sturdy individuals. Her brothers, no different. Being the youngest of three, her brothers have protected her from most things. Her parents as well, in a household filled with laughter and love. Compared to most of her peers, she was incredibly fortunate. Both her parents were alive. Neither was derelict in their role as a parent. Her parents were together. No terrible tragedy befell her brothers. Yet despite this, she is keenly aware of the fact that she is just not as capable. She fears being a disappointment despite knowing that there would be no consequence to her if she failed, she tries hard academically, socially and physically.

History

Sofia was born in Busteni, Romania into a pureblood family. She was the youngest of three, her older brothers Nicolae and David were her protectors as a child. She spent most of her childhood running through the woods, in the sun. Her mother Cristina was an herbalist, she specialized in potions. Her father Marius bred owls. Humble in comparison to many of her peers at Durmstrang. Her brothers both left the school after their fifth year. Her eldest brother Nicolae took a job as an apprentice to an older wizard, his interest being magizoology. Her middle brother David has not quite found his way yet, he is traveling but he often sends her owls and tells her about the amazing places he has been. He has a love for muggles that she finds odd but charming.

Her childhood for the most part has been uneventful. She had her first instance of magic when she was four. At least that was the first time her parents were certain that it was magic from her and not
her older brothers. However there were several instances where she had somehow escaped her crib, these 'grand escapes' blamed on her brothers who maintained their innocence to this day. However in this incident she was simply running about the yard playing with their family Krup when she found herself on the roof of their house. Yes, house, not grand mansion... not orphanage... just a normal house. Her father had to rescue her and the dog she was clutching at the time of the incident.

At the age of 10 she was admitted to Durmstrang. She was excited but also fearful. Her brothers had done so much for her to keep her safe and she feared that she would be on her own once she entered the school. Known for fortifying bodies as much as minds, she was not physically strong even if she was determined and capable. Her brothers helped her out a lot, protecting her from the rough sorts and warning her of impending tribulations such as survival week. She made a fair amount of friends as well, sadly they were not as supportive of the albatross she might prove herself to be. For that reason she endeavors to hide her weaknesses the best she can. She studies hard. has an inquiring mind and has proven herself to be a skilled caster and learner.

While she does not have a personal interest in the Dark Arts, that has been the focus of her studies. Highly academic, she tries to surround herself with those physically stronger than her in hopes that her brain with their brawn that they could have a fruitful relationship.

In her third year she applied for the Quidditch Team. [Result pending the actual applicants]

Quidditch Player: Yes

Approved - Quidd team pending, as you mentioned.

Sofia Bucur Stat Basis: Year 4;+1 from Quidditch win Broom: Bluebottle Stats: Stamina: 4 (+2 due to Bluebottle) Evasion: 15 Strength: 2 Wisdom: 9 (+1 from Erin's Quidditch win) (+2 due to Bluebottle) Arcane Power: 0 Accuracy: 15 Abilities: I. Evasive Maneuvers II. Evasive Maneuvers III. Lovely Creature

Quidditch Position: Seeker (fine with second string to give Aida her chance to play); Catcher (second string is also fine, let them play); Keeper (second string again, let them play). The only role she is unsuited for with this stat arrangement is BEATER.

Abilities

Evasive Maneuvers (purchase 1)

Reducio

Some are strong. Some are quick. Sofia is the later. While some might talk of days of hunger and strife where they had to be strong to survive, in Sofia's case that was not true. She was never strong, but she was quick. In a school that prides itself on what some might consider toxic masculinity, it more reeks of testosterone. She, like many of her peers merely adapted. Not everyone could be strong. Nature did not work like that. However, Sofia was very hard to catch. She could run quickly and she was quite agile. Nature bestowed some of course, but she also invested time and effort into refining her physical potential.

Admittedly she is a weak caster, while incredibly capable in terms of casting her spells ultimately had minimal effect on her opponents in terms of damage. While some might think it is due to her gentle nature which in part is true, she lacked the want to cause harm. Spells were merely a utility, a means to an end. In this regard she likely differed from many of her peers. It is for that reason she needed to be first, to be just a bit faster and to bend a little bit better than her peers. For the most part it has allowed her to remain on par with her contemporaries so that she can focus her interests on what is truly of interest to her.

The question of course is how. Nature is only half the equation. She did indeed have the propensity to be hard to catch, her tiny, slender form being a small target. Her long legs granting her the stride to break away from her pursuers. However it was through practice that she learned how to escape the reach of most.

Each morning she wakes at five and takes a jog. The distance often varies in accordance with the weather among other conditions, but she can often measure it in duration. An hour a day spent running, be it through the fields or trails or even the halls, she would try to always be in motion. During the warm months, while brief, she would replace her morning ritual of a long jog with a swim in the icy waters. She could be seen swimming as soon as the ice had fully melted and the snow had melted on the ground. Her lips would be blue and she would be left shivering but she always felt satisfied following, there was something about large bodies of water that always attracted her.

WC: 426

Evasive Maneuvers (purchase 2)

Reducio

This was followed by stretching. It was a myth, at least to her, that one should stretch before a work out. She had been performing yoga since her first year, a pastime taught to her by an upper class men. Admittedly it saved her skin more than once. She was not strong, both as a product of nature as well as lack of effort in that regard. However she was nimble. She only spent about thirty minutes each morning before breakfast moving through the various poses before she would break for the showers and breakfast.

Academics for the most part did little to contribute to her evasive nature. However Durmstrang was a school with more practical experiences if compared to other schools. There were times where her skill was tested against the brawn of her peers. It would have been an ideal story to claim that she was always able to get away, that she was faster and that she was able to cleanly avoid most attempts against her. That was not true, some students were both fast and strong. When she crossed them, her day was not good. However, that was infrequent and while some might claim that they experienced horrific bullying, that was not the case for Sofia. For the most part her peers were stoic, cold and indifferent. There was no passion to their pursuit, no recreation in the hunt.

When she joined the Quidditch Team this year, she refined that skill further during Flight Classes and on the pitch. Mobility in flight differs from the ground, she had every direction to go. At first her actions were clumsy but with time and practice her movements again became more fluid. In fact, she found she was at her best on a broom. Her movements unpredictable, perhaps because she was not trained initially by a coach but rather personal interest. Bludgers rarely hit her, when they did it was shattering. She broke her arm twice one week in practice. A deterrent for some, she simply concluded that she needed to be faster. 'Move or break' a conclusion she often whispers to herself when in a match. A demand, no a command to do better. To be faster and to avoid the worst of them.

She was relegated to the second string, oddly enough for her skill. She was faster, more nimble and yes she even had better aim than most. It was not an attempt to protect her delicate frame, rather to celebrate her skill. She was a powerful asset that they saved for later in the game. The devices used in matches was often scaled to the players, not the replacements. She being a replacement and more powerful, it skewed the decision-making of the game managers. A boon ultimately for her team.

WC: 465

Lovely Creature

Reducio

There was no denying it, Sofia was a pretty girl. While not particularly tall, she was fit. The intention was to look clean and flawless, a common denominator between Sofia and her peers. She spent a great deal of time maintaining her fitness as well as using makeup to maintain a pristine face. Her attire not particularly feminine and more in line with athletic or military fashion. Her accessories utilitarian for the most part, some of the other girls enjoyed baubles more than she did.

Being pretty does not grant her many favors in this setting, it merely made her one of dozens of girls with a similar face. Symmetrical. The sizes about right. Sure her eyes might be bluer than the next girl's but in the end there was a formula and they were different shades of the same face as far as she was concerned. She made no attempt to stand out, merely conform to the narrow definition of 'beauty', an asset as much as every other tool in her arsenal. The boys did it too of course. There were many that endeavored to make their stocky, sturdy forms appear slightly taller. Chose a cut for their jacket and their hair that displayed their angular features. Many were just as vain if not more so.

As she is one of many, there is no tales of suitors leaving flowers and trinkets at her door. Simply an appreciative nod that she too was adequate. It was a foolish notion to believe that vanity was left only to the vain. Because of this, there were always a few items on Sofia's person. The first being make-up. She could be seen often touching up her face, reapplying a sheen to her lips or blotting her face with an additional dollop of concealer. Her hair often up for the same reason, the gratuitous use of hair products to ensure that every hair is left in place, she was a busy girl and did not have time to freshen up her hair on a moment's notice. As such, few have seen her fresh-faced, not that there was anything wrong with her natural face. It was merely a face. However she wore make-up from the time she woke for her jog to when she went to bed, removing it only before she settled in for the night. Even her dorm mates have had limited exposure and she them.

WC: 404

Stats: Approved
Abilities: Approved

Chwalibog Izaak Kolodziejczyk
School: Durmstrang • Age: 12 years old • Year: Second • Blood: Wizard-born

Appearance:

Chwalibog stands at a slightly above average height of 153 cm. He is well-fed, almost nearing, but not quite reaching, an unhealthy weight. Though he has the potential to look normal, Chwalibog seems almost stuck in a different time period, wearing outfits, accessories, and hairstyles that had gone out of fashion many years ago. (Added to this, were his styles ever in fashion? Debatable.) His glasses, wire-rimmed and large, highlight his crystal blue eyes; strangers' gazes are often directed to his eyes because of this fact. He wears his light blond hair in an easy bowl shape, determined to keep his hair as manageable as possible so that he can devote his time to more worthwhile things. Similarly, he favors an easy style, tending to repeat his outfits multiple times within a week and regularly sporting a simple analog watch. Chwalibog possesses a broad smile with large teeth, high cheekbones, and a broad nose. In the winter, his skin fairs consistently, but he is known to get a nice tan in the summer (if he goes outside).

Personality:

Though Chwalibog is quite studious, he is not easily bullied. He believes in his intelligence to the fullest and though he will always be initially friendly, will often react coldly to his peers when they make unintelligent statements. He is quite practiced in these skills; his younger brother of two years, equally as intelligent but significantly more docile, was a suitable verbal punching bag in childhood. His ego is large because he believes, whether this is the truth or not, that he is meant to teach others to look beyond their foolish choices and simply be better. While he may not complete this goal as others would, Chwalibog fully believes that he is doing the morally right thing and sees nothing wrong with knocking someone down when they are being foolish. Others may make fun of him for his nerdy appearance, and while Chwalibog has suffered from these ridicules, he is not afraid to spar.

Chwalibog is not rude to everyone, however. He understands the importance of impressions and is always looking to assert his superiority in interactions with social superiors. Adults and professors alike tend to find him a pleasant, albeit a bit too eager to please, young boy. He is most often to flash a smile to these adults, particularly when he is assisting them in task-completion or problem-solving. If an adult makes a foolish mistake, Chwalibog will most often bite his tongue; however, his moral beliefs have clashed with his ambition before and caused him to ridicule adults previously.

The student wishes to be the very best at academics primarily, but his priorities are not exclusive to academia: he wishes to be the best at all things. Though he has always grown up flying brooms and never expressed a specific interest in Quidditch, the popularity of the sport at Durmstrang has led him to wish to be the best in it, as well. This desire has brought him to fight against his slightly stocky build in order to be superior; when he is not spending time studying, he is often found on the school's Quidditch pitch, trying to expand his skillsets so that he can qualify for a position on the team. Recently, he has begun taking an interest in the conquest of women, as well; he is unafraid to make a flirtatious comment to those desirable within his vicinity. Chwalibog is unaware of the fact that he is often left rejected due to his physical appearance, and instead, he believes that women decline his advances due to his academic and moral superiority.

History:

Mścisław and Berta's first-born, Chwalibog Izaak Kolodziejcyzk, emerged into the world on the 12th day of September, crowning inside his home just as the sun rose at 6:18. The couple had some difficulties with conception and were grateful for the birth of their perfect child, which is why they bestowed upon him a name meaning "praise God." As they gazed upon their son, they relished in his beauty while simultaneously fantasizing of the glory of his forthcoming accomplishments. They knew his future was bright.

Growing up in a pureblooded village in Poland (which shall remain unnamed due to not wanting to step on Lore's toes but it would be near Wodzisław Śląski), Chwalibog knew from a young age that he would attend Durmstrang, much like his mother and father. Thus, he speaks Russian, Polish, and due to his parents' understanding of its global importance, some English. His father, Mścisław, is a pureblooded wizard who works in curse breaking, and his mother, Berta, is a wizard-born witch who works in alchemy. While Chwalibog is wizard-born due to his great great grandfather being a Muggle-born scientist, he believes that this small bit of Muggle heritage makes him superior in comparison to other witches and wizards, as he has not only the pureblood heritage but also the well-roundedness of both Muggle and wizarding history. He often would argue his superiority with his friends once they grew old enough to understand blood heritages.

Chwalibog's life as the resident brat of the Kolodziejcyzk family changed when his brother, Donat, was born. Similarly to Chwalibog's birth, Mścisław and Berta wanted to express their thanks to God for this gift and chose a name meaning "given by God." Mścisław and Berta impressed their Catholic beliefs on their children, insisting that they attended religious services and pray nightly. Magic seemed to conflict with their histories, but they believed in channeling their understanding of darkness in order to fight the devil. Chwalibog, however, decided that this was utter crap at a young age. While he respected his parents' professions, he did not understand why they refrained from using their skills to garner power. He understood, however, that it would not be advantageous for him to go against his parents, and instead targeted all of his frustration upon his younger brother. Donat, gentle in nature and meek socially, allowed such bullying from his older brother, believing that Chwalibog would eventually tire; unfortunately, Chwalibog feasted on the control of the younger Kolodzijcyzk.

When he was not asserting his superiority, Chwalibog craved the acquisition of knowledge and studied relentlessly in hopes to improve. If his brain tired, he allowed himself to release energy in games and sports with the other witches and wizards; however, he found these activities childish and wished to limit his participation in them to a minimum. The only reason he allowed himself to participate at all was due to the fact that he saw the social standing that those with athletic and social prowess possessed. He would always attempt to improve his athletic and social standing, but he would be limited by his robotic reenactment of such things. His peers would often notice that his actions were seemingly rehearsed and not fluid.

Chwalibog enjoyed his first year at Durmstrang, for it opened a new horizon of learning that he had no access to previously. Durmstrang possessed many talented and bright witches and wizards, and he wished to capitalize on these benefits of learning. Often, Chwalibog would seem to stalk the professors, wishing to squeeze every moment of their free time for his own benefit. The boy would do this under the guise of curiosity, but overall, he wished to be smarter and more powerful. Another thing he enjoyed about Durmstrang was the number of new witches and wizards to interact with; though he simply pursued friendship in his first year, towards the end of his second, he began to be enticed by the power of women. He saw the advantages of having a partner by your side, though he believed this partnership was weighted more heavily toward his benefit and control. At this point in time, his interests are primarily around potion-making and dark arts; though he has a bit more passion towards the intimacy of potions, he fears missing out on the plethora of knowledge within the castle that he would not have in private study. In addition, one of his greatest desires is to become Head Boy so that he can prove he was the best student in his year at Durmstrang.

Quidditch:

If available, yes.

Approved

Johannes Cyprian Ambroży

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ஜ۩۞۩ஜ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ஜ۩۞۩ஜ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

STATISTICS

NAME Johannes Ambroży SCHOOL Durmstrang BIRTHDATE 20/06/2007

SPECIES Human SCHOOL YEAR Third NATIONALITY Polish

AGE 13 BLOOD Pureblood ETHNICITY German/Polish

Appearance

Maybe the first thing you would notice about Johannes from first glance is his hair, a curly crown of medium golden brown cut short into an undercut at the sides and hung long on top to cover up at least a quarter of pale skin dotted with dark birthmarks. If not the bold choice in hair that made his mother stare in disappointment, perhaps it was his eyes that drew you in with their solid slate of mid-tone fog hung under defined eyebrows, a shiny shield of metal to hide behind. Regardless of whatever stuck out first, there was no denying the boy looked like he was the type to attract trouble wherever he went- good or bad, it only depended on the day.

Already at slightly taller than 5'4 (1.65 meters) in his 13 years of age with plenty of room to grow considerably more and strappingly solid, he could pass for intimidating if only he would stand up straight. Unfortunately, unless presented with family members or under the specific circumstance in which he is embodying the charming second son he is, the pureblood is often seen slouched comfortably with a slight smirk upon his face, content to seem as if up to no good at all times.

Johannes wears his uniform comfortably and it might come as a surprise to some that he takes great pride in keeping the fur cloak neatly groomed and the buttons carefully polished, for while he had been caught numerous times for sowing chaos, he has never once been disciplined for being out of dress code- and he isn't planning to do so. First impressions are important- to a point. Other than his school robes, his wardrobe is a mash of a rainbow of soft casual and smartly prep. If it weren't for his parents' overcompensating, the boy's everyday wear would be almost completely composed of vibrant soft fabrics and rugged overcoats. His three years under the care of his grandfather took the militant, crisp cut of proper pureblood style and ran with it, invading his entire closet with sharp angles and seamless pairing. Old-money they were and sometimes old-money he had to convey, after all, as aggravated Johann became from the constant layering and adjusting that doing so required.

Personality

Cheekily influenced by a lifetime spent inseparable from his wild animal of an older brother, Johann is a streak of aggravation if let unleashed- which he is normally-, dead silent unless provoked by something and yet seemingly completely unable to let people whom he deems particularly interesting go unnoticed. A carefully impulsive soul and a wildcard sense of humour that toes the line at vaguely offensive and worrying, only for him to bat the other eye if you bring it up.

If you were to look into the teacher comments or question his schoolmates about him, it's clear that public opinion is heavily divided between 'a pleasure to know' to a 'public nuisance', and for a good reason. Johann has a 'bad habit' as according to his instructors of causing slight, inconvenient aggravations and using loopholes in speech or ruling to his advantage, taking much gratification in making things just slightly harder for anyone involved. Truly, Johannes is the type to watch the world burn and giggle amongst his companions while they toss sticks into the fire.

In spite of constantly causing his professors grief over the littlest of things, Johann is surprisingly diligent in his tasks when he isn't distracting others under the desks and behind robes, his surface-level academic scores impressively high- he could be a textbook-perfect prodigy, his teachers would say if they had the chance between keeping everyone in line, if only he didn't find everything so cynically silly. He carries a certain degree of detached resentment tucked deep within him for his parents, hidden under layers of familial obligation and love that could never truly be unearthed in words, a mask of innocence that pulled over the strange reservation that strikes him whenever confronted with the topic of his family.

A jack of all trades, you should not be foolish enough to underestimate the boy, for under the mask of informality, this child hides an intensively attentive soul that knows perfectly well that in order to get ahead, there must be some sacrifices- he is still an aristocratic pureblood in all technicalities, and with wealth comes a certain cunning to keep that position of power. But fear not, if you get on his good side, you are certain to attain a powerful friend and even more powerful bond-At some point, the line between family and friend is blurry and he exploits the hell out of that, truly at ease with those he chooses. Johannes is surprisingly soft in spite of his bravado when it comes to his companions, constantly a firm statue of clinginess and ready to listen to their ailments- though he will not nearly be as open when attempting to process his own emotions in lieu of pushing them away forcefully. In a few words, Johannes is a big dog. Maybe a bit much at first glance but the meltiest sweet summer child once you get to know him.

History

Born Johannes Cyprian Ambroży on a cool June morning in 2007, far north of Poland to the old-money pureblood couple, Ignacek Ambroży and Cesia Sauer, is where our dear wizard's story begins. Their only other child, Asriel, who was 3 years at the time, immediately took a liking to the wrinkly sack that was his brother and the two quickly became inseparable- much to the eternal exasperation of their parents attempting to wrangle the unruly pair into any semblance of peace in between their busy lives.

From the perspective of a standard upper-class pureblood family dynamic, Johann's childhood of halcyon country life was practically a fairytale. Sun-drenched summers running amok in open fields and golden-leaved autumns lounging in shedding forests alongside his brother, broken only by sunset and fed-up tutors trying to put things inside of their heads before they left again. Johannes' parents were a very strange pair in raising their two children, especially as Johannes grew older. The two were perpetually in a state of busy- Ignacek was a busy potioneer working in town and Cesia maintained the very demanding job as a travelling physician- and so were often away, allowing their children practically free reign of the house and its surrounding area during the hours of the day in which they did not see each other, only hindered by the evil eye of their tutors. When they did converge together, their aggressively sweet parenting and borderline overbearing attitude comes full force, attempting to fit seamlessly as the disciplined adult figures for their wild boys.

In between running amok in the countryside they called home, the daily introduction of their parents and being cooped up indoors for makeshift classes, Johann and Asriel had carved out their own niche within the local town where their father set up shop. While they were not allowed to invade the brick-built building filled with glass bottles and overrun with the smells of herbs, their father let them do whatever they desired in the small community as long as they did not wreak too much havoc. Surprisingly, the duo were a polite, if not equally mischievous pair, who entertained themselves by visiting the residents bearing random items they found on their 'adventures', often receiving trinkets of their own to keep.

It was at the little bakery that supplied the area's goods that Johann spent his time most often, running around on the streets with the local children as Asriel stayed within the blacksmith's den, endearing himself to the old couple who owned the store with ease. For a while this pattern continued- some days he and his brother would wander the lands as mini explorers and others as civilised brats pretending to fit into the life their friends had.

But of course, not all good things last forever. The two began to grow slightly older and as Asriel soon grew old enough to attend Durmstrang, the hours spent outside together disappeared like candleflame, serious educational and etiquette lessons taking up everything that was left. The day that Asriel left to Durmstrang for his first year, Johann was sent away as well to Germany to live with his grandfather, an illustrious entrepreneur and strict traditionalist.

Three years Johannes spent in Germany, shaping up and observing first hand what "serious and respectable" business work was in the heart of Frankfurt under the firm hand of Alexander Manfred Saur. After the time was up and his own departure grew near, Johannes returned home to greet his brother and share with him whatever he had learned. No such thing occurred.

Asriel had grown significantly from the impishly flippant companion of Johann's dreams, becoming spiteful about their country-slow living and reserved in the face of their parents as a bitter rose of resentment bloomed within his heart. The rest of Johannes' summer was just as lonely- if not more so- than off-days in Germany, for it seemed that as Asriel matured with the embrace of culture, the townspeople became distant over the time away as well. People had moved in, people moved out, such was life.

It wasn't until Johannes began his own schooling in Durmstrang that he realised where his brother was coming from. There were so many different people, so many different experiences and yet so much to do during every second of the day. It was a scarily exhilarating culture shock for the country boy. Spite of his own built with every visit back home, the intense contrast of busily apathetic dismissal versus sudden, forceful affection like fire and ice. But his three years with his grandfather had taught him that negative emotions were harmful- harmful to whatever relation he was to have with the people he interacted with- and so Johannes pushed it down, masking himself in wide-eyed reverence and enthusiastic nods.

Durmstrang was his escape, his beautifully harsh world in which he can be whatever he wanted. Home was no longer home and suddenly there was a part of Johannes that pinned family to school.

Is your character a Quidditch Player: No.

Approved

Johannes Ambroży

Statistics
Stamina: 7
Evasion: 8
Strength: 8
Wisdom: 6
ArcPower: 7
Accuracy: 9

[45/45]

Abilities
Ability 1 | Foulplay

Reducio

Save face, keep your cards close and do not trust anyone completely. Just a few lessons to be taught when business meets political relations meets possible personal ruin. Of course, when Alexander Manfred Saur drilled those sentences into his young charge, he knew exactly what he was doing. Johannes is a Shakespearean fool by nature, with a trickster

Smooth conning was a family trait for the Saurs- they didn't gain so much money wholly legally after all, but then again, most high ranking families had some ties with the unsavoury more often than not. The Saurs were just a bit more, how you say, unapologetic about it. Alexander Manfred's father had been deeply involved in the mafia as a highly influential capo, holding a very close friendship with the local don- as had his father's father, who had immigrated from Italy to west Germany under orders to spread the influence. Nasty business did they do, keeping their magic under wraps as they worked their way through the ranks generation at a time with blood and their lives on the line.

And for a long while, that was how things worked. They would pass on their skills early on and watch them blossom, under the safety blanket that was their position, and attempt to contribute as much experience and ability to the sect as they ducked in and out of the public eye. Alexander Manfred was a stray in terms of historical context- he had took off into life just as proper as he should have, married a nice woman with good ties and affirmed their alliance, but the moment that the child was announced, the man had packed right up and moved off into Frankfurt. Leaving behind all that he knew, the role of future capo to his younger brother, Anselm Wilhelm Saur.

His only daughter Cesia would eventually leave to Poland to pursue a life with another. Mildly disappointing, for his darling clearly deserved someone better in his rightful opinion, even if the sweet suaveness passed down from parent to child did seem to skip over the next generation. Life went on. In time Asriel was borne into the world- a sneaky child he would prove to be in his beginning years any time that Cesia would bring the babe over, but a sneaky child with too little to hide and too much to say. It was worrisome, almost. Perhaps this was where things were to die out, in the middle of a pretty estate in green rural Poland.

And yet three years later after his first grandchild came another. There was a spark there, in the infant's eye as Alexander Manfred loomed over him, all Saur grey eyes and swaddled in pale green. There was something special in the child, even more special than the magic that ran through their veins. Even more special than the miracle that Cesia had even been able to conceive at all in such a stressful setting- Poland was slow but it was fast and Germany was even faster-. And with proper training, that specialness could bloom into something more. Yes yes yes, there was hope after all for the child.

But it would have to wait to be developed. And wait did he do and develop did it. Over letter he heard the exasperated jottings of Cesia, remarking that it seemed every day her boys seemed to get in more and more trouble, it seemed like every other day since Johannes was introduced to the town that he came back home with sticky fingers and a new trinket he had swiped from the counters. Time drew on and life continued.

7-year-old Johannes came into his home in Frankfurt in the middle of a perilous time. With the departure of Asriel to Durmstrang and the sudden addition of a child came trouble from the west. The little sect was cracking under the scrutiny of the local law enforcement, hastily dropping their publicity with all the swiftness of a desperate animal seeking for safety. And without any prior notice did Anselm drop by, eager to visit his estranged brother and grandnephew.

So young Johannes meet his granduncle for the first time in his young life, two years into the child's 'apprenticeship'- more like babysitting, Anselm would often tease when the two brothers were alone- and there was an immediate shift. Alexander's brother had always been the more culture-savvy of the bunch, always been the better at children and adults alike, so it was a no-brainer that they would get along. It was only surprising at how well did Johann attach himself to the mobster- for as much as Ansel was good at bonding with others, he was also just as good at the morally questionably things that he did.

The promise of potential. Er, the promise of potential, or so Johannes so often heard Alexander Manfred Saur remind himself under his breath with a disappointed glare as if the boy couldn't hear him from behind a gleaming smug smile and scuffed boots that had been newly shined until they gleamed only a few hours earlier. It seemed that Johannes took after his granduncle much more than he did his grandfather- too reckless and getting way too much of a kick out of messing around than the bitty should have.

Regular folk don't take his wittiness as well as expected and 'imitation is the best flattery' doesn't work as well when the listener interprets it as mockery, you see. But as Johann matured at Durmstrang, his aptitude for chaos only increased. So Alexander Manfred took it upon himself to take in the boy every summer with the encouragement of his brother, silently planting the methodology on how exactly to sway people's opinions and keep unnoticed. The tools that he had been taught himself as a child were having a comeback, and he could only pray that Johannes Cyprian would use them well.

Unbeknownst to him, the boy was using it more than well. So useful, it needed to be utilised. And what better way to test it out than on those around him?

[WC: 1018]

Ability 2 | Charmer

Reducio

There was something about Johannes that drew you in and kept your attention. It didn't happen immediately- quite the opposite really, for it was easy at a glance to dismiss the boy as another troublemaker in red and fur. And it certainly didn't happen all at once. It was a slow build of opinion, constant lapping of water slowly eroding away your defences as he stands in front of you, all innocent words as he strips away the shields with surprisingly diligent patience.

A smooth talker, half-truths cheekily spilling themselves from his mouth with ease, there's a certain caution you should take when striking up deals with this bold trainwreck of a boy. There's no telling if he's going to toss you out or keep you in, taking and taking and yet acting as if he half didn't know it.

When he was younger, Johannes' quick mind and easy tongue had been what got him the attention on all who knew him- after all, there was a reason why the spare son was the one to be groomed under his grandfather's wing instead of Asriel after all, and that reason alone often made it so that he attracted just as much nasty stares as impressed.

It only got worse- or better, depending on who you asked- the moment he stepped foot on Durmstrang land. So many people, not quite so alike in dignity, such a diverse mix of personalities that he had never encountered before. It made for the perfect set up. Because there seemed to only be two types of people there, the sweet and the salty, and luckily Johannes is a good taste tester.

He walked into first year shoulder to shoulder alongside his brother- yin and yang, some whisper as they pass- and walks out with teacher opinion split. Second-year, he entered with a blank face and the first night there he decides he will make something of a name for himself. All he needed was some good setups and a solid amount of sweet talk.

With a bit of time and recklessness, he gains lackeys- loyal outcasts who are all too willing to follow around in an attempt to win sway over his heart, as if that was an easy feat to do- and together they form a group so chaotic it is impossible to decide if he is the bad influence or they are. And with his followers, he gains somewhat of a reputation in his little section of the castle. To those who grow to form their opinions of him off his stunts see him as a sly lunatic, a self-indulgent madman without care for authority, a slimy fake hiding under a pretty face. It's almost funny, the sheer contrast of interest there is. Some say he's a delinquent. Or a misunderstood pity party? Others say he's a rebel. Or the very picture of wayward potential?

By this point, it's hard to keep track of what people say he is because it's easy to get muddled with contrasting opinions and Johannes is perfectly content to allow the rumours to spread. And while there was a great number of people who stop to stare at him with suspicious eyes every time he walks through the halls, tailed nicely by wand-wielding

Go to Asriel if you needed a quick danger fix, full of spite and filled with the ever-present risk of being caught.

Johannes was for those who cared just a little too less for their heart.

[WC: 662]

Ability 3 | Evasive Maneuvers -

Reducio

Meadows of thick green grass and colourful wildflowers surrounding on all sides, Johannes' earliest memories were fuzzy with time and turned bittersweet with fate, but at the very least he could remember that his adventures tagging along Asriel in the Polish countryside were spent on foot. They went off the worn dirt road by Johann's direction so much that there was no need for bikes or other transportation like the ones he and his German peers became so fond of. A naturally fast kid with the speed that let him take the lead in the first half of every race, he used to pride himself more in bursts of speed than the very bad endurance that kept Asriel on top in the long run.

When he had been shipped off to Germany and placed into a different school at 8, he'd already been well-acquainted with the air under his feet and tough bark against his skin, the impact of ground meeting leather soles and the seasons nipping at his back. His departure from the golden fields to the concrete city of Frankfurt signified a shift from the free carelessness conveyed in the backfields of the Polish countryside to the peculiar combination of proper pureblood etiquette placed alongside modern society.

The next year was the first time he'd been on a proper broom by himself, zooming through the azure sky in circles around his grandfather as Alexander Manfred looked up from below, standing in the middle of a pretty green meadow that mirrored the Polish countryside he had just left. A few weeks after that, the Olympics had shown live on the television. Passing by an electronics shop was the only reason why he had even seen it, the screen protected behind glass windows as people flipped and jumped in competition, a crowd formed around it. Johannes had promptly begged his grandfather into taking afterschool gymnastics classes.

Okay, wait a second. That's enough prose-y rambling about the past. We're talking about the now- talking less about the wholesome slice of his life turned foul. The present. The last month of summer and the beginning of the new year. As much as a straight shot Johannes was turning out to be, it seemed that wandwork wasn't his forte. Especially when it came to funny things like duelling- summer camp was only an embarrassing tipping point to an already subpar area. He wasn't bad at aim or anything- years of messing around and finetuning his motor skills to give him some edge negated any such thought- but it was if everything in the universe collided to give him the worst hand of cards. Sometimes it was the sun, sometimes it was the heat, most of the time it was his wand freaking out on him. He used magic often for the little things- pranks and practicalities- but it seemed that the instrument felt more like a pacifist's tool in the barest of concepts. What a disappointing thought, but something that just had to be accepted.

It didn't matter anyway. Duelling involved standing on guard, but standing guarded still as a mother tree. Advance, defend- it was both the same in keeping rooted. Johannes was not the pinnacle of steadiness. He could hold his own and attack back like any other, but to so in the open, without cover or chance of escape? That would not do. He lived and breathed in the split second of the quickdraw, the wind stinging at his eyes as it rushed over him, the feeling of freedom in his bones tempered by danger and adrenaline.

The last month after summer camp and the first of the new year, he started to train just a bit harder than usual. Not for pure strength like some of the more intimidating tanks of Durmstrang, not for magic- his roughened knuckles and scraped palms could not match up to the pretty hands soft with physical idleness- but for speed and agility. If he won't stand to bear the blows head-on, if he could not fire back jets of power from the pool of magic in his veins, then maybe he could attempt to avoid them altogether. Avoid them and hit back hard when they wouldn't see him coming.

During his last month of summer in Germany, he researched and executed heavily the very basics of parkour to get around quicker between his paperboy job, errands, and his free time without a bike. The thrill of leaping and flipping through the air combined his affinity for gymnastics with the rush of constant motion, a light dollop of danger and flair atop the finest cake. He questioned his gymnastic coaches on how to keep limber "at boarding school"- easy cop-out, and it wasn't wrong- and took diligent notes to take with him back to Durmstrang.

There was a feral need to capture that feeling and prolong it- and if he could combine the muggle-type nature to the wizarding world that his ancestors buried? Well, that just made the deal all the sweeter. His first day back to Durmstrang after classes, he picked up a school broom and sought out the flying and racing instructors, promoting some of the racers in his group up the ranks to learn a bit from them. His reputation preceded him and rumours started up- soon he had to shoulder past sceptics whispering in contemplation at whatever trick he was planning- but he would not budge in his mission. Things were going to look up, he was sure of it. If not, well. He was going to take fate in fist and make it.

[WC: 938]

Speciality
1.) Is your character a Broom Racer?: Yes.
2.) Is your character a Quidditch Player?: No.
3.) Is your character a Duelist?: No.

Broom: Not yet,,, unless?

Approved

............

Name: Nichlas Forsberg
Age: 14 years old (July 25, 2006)
School Year: 4^th year
Race: Human
Blood Status: Pure-blood

Appearance: Measuring 5 feet 10 inches and still growing, Nichlas is on the taller side. His body is quite lean and athletic in build. His complexion is that of a pale peach color and there are no visible scars to be seen on his face but due to past duels there are a few that cover his upper body. He has clear hazelnut colored eyes which seem more greenish-blue in sunlight but are an amber brown when it's cloudy. His hair is a dark blonde and usually combed and neatly styled with styling gel. His sense of fashion is quite on point but diverse; most often however he wears tailored and perfectly fitted clothes that help accentuate his general appearance. More often than not does he have a smug look on his face, while his resting face can only be described as distant and somber.

Personality: Nichlas is a boy with a cold surface radiating a aura of superiority and nobility. He walks with his chin held high and a calculating if not scrutinizing look on his face. He always gets what he wants and if he doesn't his frustration tolerance is low enough for him to go out of his way to make things play out in his favor. More often than not does he reach for his wand to settle an argument with magic, which he is good at and he absolutely knows that he is good at it. He enjoys a good duel any day, prompting and mocking people to showcase their magic if necessary especially towards those of a lower blood. The way he speaks is often quite sarcastic and he is always testing people for their reactions towards him, which can make him quite disliked in the eyes o many. However Nichlas couldn't care less. In Durmstrang he does have a group of friends who got his back, but most importantly he has his sister. The two of them are like day and night, with his sister sharing the sentiment over muggles and those of lower magic that their parents do.

History: The Forsberg family is an old pure-blood family, known mostly for their long history of horse breeding and their alliance with the Ministry of Magic. Their residence is in Österlen, a region in the southeast of the Swedish province of Scania, Nichlas and Ella were born and raised. Their father is an auror while their mother is known across Europe for her stables with pedigree winged horses; especially the Granians sell well. Nichlas is the first born of the two children in the Forsberg manor. He was raised to value everyone for who they are and not their background, his parents always having been open to the thought of muggle-borns in the magical world and even supporting the idea of squibs living up in magical areas. Nichlas grew up sharing those values, being open to everyone no matter their blood type or backstory, even having a fair amount of muggle friends. But his best friend had always been Ella, his little sister. Of course they would quarrel like siblings do but by the end of the day they always had each other's back and Nichlas early on began to take over a kind of protector role for his younger sister, guarding her against what possible could turn into a threat for Ella. For Nichlas everything changed when he was accepted into Durmstrang and first got to really discover what he could do. This coupled with some bad influences his values were quick to change and adjust to the new school's standards. He quickly started to believe in the prejudices about lower blood status and the thought of spending times with muggles began to disgust him. He would cut all ties with his past muggle friends. When he returned home after his first year at Durmstrang he seemed like a completely changed person, all of his childish naivety was gone and the only person he could feel at ease with was Ella. Even with opposite values and different opinions the siblings are still inseparable. In his first year of school he once tried for Quidditch but was quick to realize that magic and dueling was his forte. Both the Dark Arts and the Defense against the count to his most liked subjects. Since his third year and onward, Ella joined Durmstrang as well, her mind stronger than her brother's she stuck to her beliefs, which Nichlas secretly respects a lot. Even if Ella's opinions sometimes get her into trouble at Durmstrang, Nichlas is around to make sure no one dares to say something bad about her.

Approved

Noted association with Ella.

Stats(50 total)
Stamina: 05
Evasion: 04
Strength: 01
Wisdom: 15
Arcane Power: 10
Accuracy: 15

System:
Quidditch - No
Duelist - Yes
Broom Racer - No

Abilities(Human)
01 Evasive Maneuvers 10% chance to auto-dodge attacks
02 Perfectionist dice has -1 critical failure count
03 Spell Spread target a second user with your spell
04 Terrible Presence lots of de-buffs to others

01 Evasive Maneuvers 10% chance to auto-dodge attacks

It was during his second year at Durmstrang, right after the summer holidays were over when Nichlas and Disa spend some time together to train their abilities as wizards. The two of them would have a long road ahead until they made it to perfection even though they were obviously ahead of many of their peers. Spells have always been easy for the young boy, it was as if he had been born to cast magic and frankly he was; after all he was a pure blooded wizard and not just an ordinary one.

On this day the two of them had decided for a tricky training, one they not often did since it was unlikely to happen. It was an emergency training in case one was not in the possession of their wand at any given time while under attack. One could say that perhaps they did this training just because it was hilarious to see the other person attempt to dodge some spells they sent into their direction. Whatever the reason was, today it was Nichlas's time to dodge the spells while Disa would cast them at him without batting an eyelash. She was cold like that sometimes but that was what he liked about her; that he could always count on her to be boldly honest and speak her mind.

As they were training it was quite tricky for Nichlas to keep dodging the spells that were sent into his direction and from times he was sneezing or curling himself onto the ground while wheezing out painful fits of laughter. Disa was creative and had quite the variety of spells to practice on the willing victim.

Over the course of time Nichlas actually managed to dodge some of the spells even though more often than not it seemed to be based on luck rather than his quick reflexes. In times like these he wished he was more like his little sister who had always been good to escape his grasp whenever they played tag in the backyard during the warm summer days. But at least now he knew that he might not be completely lost if he were to not be able to cast something to shield himself; he knew that there was some lucky percentage that allowed him to nimby dodge an attack of any sorts. So perhaps this training had not been completely useless after all.

WC: 401
permission to godmod @Scott Alexander's NPC was given

02 Perfectionist dice has -1 critical failure count

If there is one thing that Nichlas absolutely despises then it is failure, not just because failing at something sucks but also because it was quite humiliating. Ever since the pressure of competition in the noble school of Durmstrang got a hold of him, he could not help but want to be the best and show everyone that he belonged where he currently stood. The constant desire to proof himself to his peers.

One particular event had only strengthened the desire to stand above the other students and to grow to be an outstanding wizard with unmatched talent. It happened in a duel against another student, a duel he himself had initiated with said student and he had failed a spell so horribly that it backfired on his own person. While he had still managed to win the duel against the other student, he had sworn himself to not let such a thing happen again. He would have to work on this as quick as possible and so he did just that.

He spent all his free time after having dealt with homework and classes to practice spells and his casting abilities. He would spend so much time on perfecting all of this that he was barely seen without practicing his spell set. Even in the evening he would be bend over a book of spells and using the wand lightening charm Lumos as some sort of nightlight to help him read. All there was to learn about the spells he knew was in his head and therefore he should be able to cast spells without much of a hindrance. It helped him grow as a caster and it made it nearly impossible for him to fail at a spell for another time.

From then on Nichlas had been prepared for duels and other situations he had to use magic in and he was proud at the results of his constant practice and discipline as he was now quite good at casting the spells he would want to cast. Spells and similar actions were no longer as worrisome for him as he knew that it could no longer go horribly go wrong, at least not under normal circumstances. He had made sure of knowing exactly how to enunciate the incantation he wished to cast and how to accompany it with the matching wand movement. He knew the story to each of the spells he was familiar with and knew what they would be capable off. After all he needed to be perfect in what he was doing.

WC: 427

03 Spell Spread target a second user with your spell

It had started out as a story had hear but quickly turned into a bet when he began to brag. Apparently it was possible to have a spell target multiple people at once and as soon as Nichlas had gained such a knowledge he wanted to learn it. Being himself he had bragged to his peers but mostly Disa that he could learn this without any difficulties. That his magic was good enough and that he could do it. There was nothing at stake except his honor when Disa had challenged him to proof that he was indeed capable of mastering this skill and this was how it began.

He started by how everyone would have started and paid the library a visit. He would spend the whole weekend browsing the school library for books that could help him to self study the skill of casting in such a way and when he was happy with the fair collection of books, he would borrow them all so that he could read them in his dorm. It was similar to when he began to study every spell he knew to a T. He would read all the pages he could that could help him with the theoretical knowledge that he would require to perfectly master this skill.

Once he had all the theory down he would began the actual practice which would proof whether he would be good enough and he was truly confident that he would master it. He began small by casting easy charms he had learned very early on. It worked well and soon he was mending two broken pencils at the very same time. But this was not enough for the young kid. He did not want it to just be a little trick, he wanted to show off his skill and be special and for this he would need to do something a little more impressive than mending broken pencils. He would need to be able to use it in duels and have an upper hand.

Soon he was able to cast multiple jinxes and hexes at once, using training dummies for practice and of course by practicing it on students that were more or less willing to help him out. It was going fantastic and when he thought to have perfected the skill he went to show it to Disa and won the bet just like that; a bet that never had been a real bet but had felt like a challenge nonetheless. It took more focus to cast like this, but he was sure he would do just fine. After all he knew his spells.

WC: 441
permission to control @Scott Alexander's NPc was given

Terrible Presence:
Some people just are not nice and no matter how you twist and turn them or try to find another perspective on how to perceive them, they will follow up with disappointment. Not every lost soul is a diamond in the rough or needs some guiding and some have strayed so far from the path that just by looking at them you can feel that something is off. The same applies for Niche and while the boy has a handful of people he considers his allies there are even less that he would actually trust. About the only person to receive his trust would be his sister and no matter how much their opinions differ they both have their back.

But Niche is not easy, he is far more difficult than one could assume, far more dangerous and ruthless than one would expect. Niche truly has some unresolved anger issues and they do not mix well with his cocky attitude and ego. He easily assumes to be in the right and would not stand anyone who defies him. He is ruthless in his ways and will cast one nasty curse after the other if he has the chance with little to no regret. He is someone who has a goal in mind and will do what he can achieve it no matter what, even if he has to betray people to do so because after all it would all be for the greater good, at least in the good that he believes in. His cause will often fail to justify his actions but he strides with pride and continues his path. He can be quite dangerous and scary and has build up a reputation that will cause people to duck out of the way just to avoid his wrath. Even those who do not know him yet, often just sense that there must be something off about him. His demeanor is cold and his glare calculating and piercing as if he is stalking prey and just constantly weighing his chances.

It makes for such a huge different when he is around his sister, because even though he still seems scary for onlookers, there is no way he would ever bring his sister into harms way and he receives his sister's support almost unconditionally. She might not agree with him but she knows the old Niche and knows that he has a good heart under that freezing shell he had build up over the years. Niche has changed a lot since they were children and while their path might not align anymore they still walk them together.

Stats: Approved
Abilities: Approved

Broom(in Trunk)
01 Silver Arrow +3 to every stat when in use

Appearance

Personality

History

Approved

Stats: Stamina: 3 | Strength: 1 | Evasion: 7 | Wisdom: 10 | Accuracy: 7 | Arc Power: 7 |

Approved

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Jag förstod aldrig orden som du sa Aldrig varför vi två var ett par Så medan jag väntar på ett svar Ska jag kyssa ditt hjärta i kras ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Här på mitt golv bland skärvor o glas För jag har inga mirakel Att lova nån i natt Karenina ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

age: 14
year: fourth
nationalities: Swedish and Russian
race: human
blood status: pureblood

Appearance:

Her dark hair cut abruptly below her ears, shoulders back and eyes hooded- Hjördis appears about as sharp and contemptuous as she wishes to.

She doesn't want the stares, neither those of admiration nor repulsion (though she often assumes the liberty to distribute some of the latter herself), and so she, whilst still keeping her hair and clothes as neat and spotless as she can, doesn't wear the flashy rings she can afford nor the necklaces she has inherited. Instead, when out of her Durmstrang uniform, she dresses in a plainer apparel in order to maintain an almost professional air very peculiar for a fourteen-year-old. But it's not like one of the Svaetichin family, to dress extravagantly even though they can.

Physically, Hjördis is tall (176cm) and slender. Scandinavian, Baltic and Russian features all play parts in her icy impression: her skin is pale but flushed about her cheeks and nose, and her eyes are as dark as her hair.

Personality:

Hjördis behaves much more like her father than she does her mother, and anyone who knew her family would say the same. She is silent, disdainful and proud of everything from the heritage of her two family names to her academic career, short as though it is. But she would never seek out an argument, nor offend someone with the knowledge that it would play out disorderly for her... Those kinds of things aren't worth her time.

But Hjördis is prejudiced. There's no denying that. She was born into two very old pureblood families and was raised to believe that this was something to be immensely proud of, and something that made her just that bit better than those who did not share her history. And though her heart is of course not full of hate, nor is her mind full of ideas that half-bloods or muggleborns somehow lack in talent, there is contempt.

In the company of the few people outside her family whom Hjördis can stand, she doesn't actually act very different from this. She gives up on the hostility, lets them call her Disa for the sake of their comfort, but never lets her guard down. It's got no business being down.

History:

The von Rosens are an old, prestigious and pureblood family originally from the Baltic, but that as of the 16th century has barely got a single member outside of Sweden. There, they've always lived in somewhat close proximity to the capital and its important assets in Svealand's many mansions. Hjördis' mother, Åsa von Rosen, had for example been born and raised in the middle of the Stockholm archipelago- and had had no intentions whatsoever of leaving these islands, before her eventual husband seemed to deem it a necessity to bring the social butterfly north.

So much can be expected of a Svaetichin. This family's origins remain Russian as far back as any family's origins go, and their wealth and power have much more to do with ancient riches and land than the von Rosens' successes in politics and marriage... In fact, the Svaetichin family holds politics in a very low regard. They don't believe in popularity, but rather that you're born with your value. The value of your blood.

It was an obvious thing then, to Andrei Svaetichin, that a direct result of his marrying Åsa von Rosen would be that the two moved away from such an ostentatious metropolis as Stockholm... away from the new money. When she immediately upon request refused to move all the way back to Russia with him, Andrei settled for a manor in Norrland- shielded by the kind of wild forests and waters that could remind him a bit of home.

Though Åsa definitely had been in love with Andrei (at least a little bit in the beginning), and had deemed the bragging rights that would surely follow such an arrangement as their marriage to play very well among her cousins and acquaintances- none of it seemed worth it to her once she'd moved up north. Norrland is cold, and Norrland is lonely.

But it was in this part of the country where Hjördis was born, on the twelfth of January 2006. And this girl was to grow up to yearn for no other place.

Already as a young child, Hjördis was showing much more likeness to her father than anyone else. In Swedish, she even neutralised her mother's Stockholmian accent by learning to speak slowly and malignly like him. She, too, loathed their trips to the capital, and greatly preferred the solitude of their home- far from all other settlements.

As she got older, Hjördis seemed to find the only company worth having in books. In them, she could read stories just like the fascinating ones her father or his brothers would tell her about Russia, or the many great things their family had achieved. Though she was proud of her von Rosen heritage, too, it interested her far less to learn about who married whom two centuries ago... Which is what she, quite unfairly, deemed all their history to be.

But whether she liked her isolated upbringing or not does not change this one fact: Hjördis had little to no training in interacting with other people her age, before she was sent to Durmstrang.

This isn't to say she was lacking in etiquette, of course not, but rather in that innocent and therefor welcoming nature that you need at least a little bit of in order to approach and be approached at that age... Even if she had wanted to make friends it wouldn't have been easy. She was lucky then, even though she probably didn't realise it, that Durmstrang wasn't completely without students willing to overlook such hostility in their peers. She had her names... She had the academic talents... And, as a result, she does now have people to call friends. Even though they don't matter as much to her as they could (at least, she wouldn't admit that they do), she does realise how important it is to have people to rely on- especially in a place like their school.

But she is a Svaetichin at heart, and popularity is not to be considered.

Since she first left her home for the castle, her parents have been spending more and more time in their own corners of the world. Andrei began travelling back to Russia much more frequently, and Åsa returned to her family in Stockholm for long periods of time. It's no secret, or at least it isn't a very well-kept one, that she is engaging in one or more affairs down in Svealand... But Andrei, who definitely knows of this, doesn't seem to care at all about that "disrespect" as much as his daughter does.

Though she's doing a good job of containing herself, a resentment has begun to grow within her.

On some distant, von Rosen level, it all probably broke her heart. But she kept reminding herself that love (at least the romantic kind) had never really mattered to her. That it had never played any part in her father's stories, and that her lonely mother's actions only confirmed the silliness of the whole idea... And she didn't spend time on silliness. No, that's very important.

Is she a quidditch player? No.

Translations:

Reducio

I never understood the words you said
Or why you and I were one
So while I await my answers
I'll kiss your heart in two
(On my floor, among shards and among glass)
I don't have any miracles to promise anyone tonight
Karenina

Approved

Stats:

stamina: 8
evasion: 7
strength: 3
wisdom: 11
arcane power: 8
accuracy: 8

Abilities:

Ability year 1: advanced casting

Reducio

"Effect: A reflection of inherent skill or simply hard work in studies. Spells have an increased chance of being a critical hit. +1 to the critical chance, so if a critical would be on a 20, now it would be on a 19 or a 20."

If you're not going to do something properly, then there's no point in doing it at all. That is one of the many things the young Hjördis has decided to live by, and (because of that very principle), she lives by it thoroughly. Just as she has done for the most part of her life.

For as long as the girl can remember, her father had taught her about the importance of impact- quality over quantity. Like a "make the few words you say, count"-sort of thing... He was very much himself a man of this philosophy, Andrei, and it was one of the most distinct differences there were between Hjördis' two parents: where her mother would chat, spill her heart out, and make do- her father would remain passive, closed up, and only settle for the opportunities arisen that boded him well.

And then, what went for conversation, of course also went for magic:

While neither of Disa's guardians had raised her to seek out confrontation, or to ever use her abilities recklessly, the major contributor to her attitude towards magic as a subject was, again, her father. To the both of them, magic was something sacred. It was an academic force that you were to study carefully until you knew as much about it as you possibly could... That was one very pureblood take, that differed from her Swedish family's.

In Stockholm, witches and wizards who were proud of their magical heritage would express this by making whatever item they were currently holding glitter or sing... They would throw spells all around, without knowing the least thing about them, only because they could...

Or at least, this is what Andrei Svaetichin had told his daughter. And it might be useful to remember that he didn't have a very high regard for these people.

In any case, it is this philosophy that has kept Hjördis' nose buried so deep in books for so many years now... As well as what has kept her eager to practice these spells practically, outside of classes- with her father or uncles, or even together with other students at Durmstrang before whom she felt more confident failing.

Or rather, who she knew wouldn't mind should her successes hurt them.

She and Nichlas, for example, they would practice. And he was good for practice, too, since even though she might like him- the boy embodied a certain cockiness that added to the satisfaction of hitting him would just about anything.

Especially when that something was done properly.

WC: 422 words without the ability description at the top.

permission granted to godmod Alan Vanes' NPC

Ability year 2: perfectionist

Reducio

"Effect: You have a reduced critical failure chance range by 1. In addition, you can counter up to 1 point of additional critical failure chances caused by abilities or spells (not potions)."

While it might go without saying, it is evident that Hjördis' great determination to succeed (advanced casting) has come hand in hand with her thankfully less prominent fear of failure. It's not something she ever discusses, not with anyone at all, but it would be dishonest of her not to admit that it has played an important part in fuelling her years worth of hard work. Both academically, and in the rare efforts she makes in other areas.

Failing is just not something you do. Especially not out of recklessness.

Here, at least, both of Hjördis' parents can for once agree. Because while her mother might appear soft in comparison to her husband (a comparison in which she has lived since their marriage), it's important to remember that Åsa, too, was raised within wizarding high society. In fact, it wouldn't be a stretch to suggest that the pressure put on the young witches and wizards in Stockholm were even harsher than those Disa's father had learned to live under in his remote parts of Russia.

Because that was the thing about political families: everyone knew everything about everyone else, and they only cared about the worst parts. You might've been born with some worth, the worth of your pure blood, but that didn't mean you couldn't easily lose it...

So then, even though Hjördis herself had lived all of her life far away from such communities in both the physical and emotional sense- the idea that shortcoming was a very shameful thing, had stayed with her through her parents, slowly manifesting itself in the girl as a hidden kind of nervousness, much like her mother's, as well as a deep wish to impress her father.

And to impress herself. Who else is there, really?

Academically, this has proven to serve Hjördis as a strong motivator to stay meticulous in her studies. There's no skimming through the details of a spell, no butchering its pronunciation, and no aimless flailing of her wrist... Only precise practice. It is what has earned her some very good marks through her schooling years, and a for her paramount yet unobtrusive reputation- one that has reached her family, and that has become that which they expect from her. That, and nothing less... And so it's also what she will be expecting from herself, now, and for many years to come. Both out of fear, and out of pride.

WC: 402 words without the ability description at the top.

Ability year 3: sixth sense

Reducio

"Effect: +2 to their awareness rolls. If a player attempts to enter a thread that you are already in, there is a 25% chance that you automatically detect them on entry."

She's always been more or less on guard, Hjördis, and has been for as long as she can remember. Every waking hour she'd allow for one eye to inspect the room, and for one ear to listen for anything out of the ordinary to occur around her... because those things rarely boded any well in her opinion, that is, the opinion of someone who didn't enjoy surprises of any kind.

Yet you shouldn't necessarily call her paranoid- the girl is just not self-interested enough to believe that the world is out to get her. But at the same time, she'd always found herself distrusting of both intentions as well as her surroundings- no matter how seemingly innocent they might be... And of course, residing in a dark castle full of ambitious and hierarchical young witches and wizards (who ranged all the way from the most recklessly impulsive to the most carefully determined)- did contribute to this.

In fact it contributed to it a lot.

Thankfully, her wariness wasn't exactly due to a great many enemies within the school, as she didn't imagine she really had any... Mostly, of course, because she thought the idea was rather childish. There were students whom she more or less loathed, that was true, but she wouldn't go out of her way to pay them any sort of unnecessary attention. Nor, she sincerely hoped, did they her.

No. Her alertness was instead something she could largely thank her own disciplined work for (not that she hadn't always been observant). It was the truth that the Durmstrang Institute taught its students about the dark ways of magic, and in some cases primarily its use in combat... Among many other things too, of course, but it was still in this light that Hjördis regarded the art. And so, in studying it, she had grown cautious and hyper-aware...

Hjördis had managed this perfection, just like she had with her spell casting, by consistently taking every chance she got to sharpen her senses by practicing out of class... Which she'd especially do together with her friend Nichlas. She'd already bettered her accuracy and the power with which she could use her magic with him, but it was when it was his turn to practice, that she had to stay viligant: Nichlas would hide and creep all through their school in order to surprise the girl, and to gain the upper hand in whatever combat his ambush would launch. Sometimes he'd make it (which proved that the boy actually could be quiet if he really wanted to), and sometimes, more and more frequently as they both had grown better, he'd fail.

Some might call this a game. Hjördis most certainly would not.

WC: 452 words without the ability description at the top.

permission granted to godmod Alan Vanes' NPC

Stats: Approved
Abilities: Approved

Approved

Elias Oja

Stats:
Stamina: 10
Evasion: 7
Strength: 7
Wisdom: 5
Arcpower: 5
Accuracy: 7
_{+1 for quidditch win}

Abilities

Evasive Maneuvers

Reducio

Sports is something Elias is no stranger to. In fact, they’re one of the only things he uses to blow off steam. In such a constantly cold and cloudy climate, there wasn’t much to do after all. Before Durmstrang, Elias spent his childhood years in Finland playing hockey. Most children did, actually. It was hard to resist when there was a frozen-over lake right in your backyard. For hours he’d be on the ice with his family, and honestly… They were a lot better than him. It was frustrating since he was older than most of his sisters and he couldn’t even win against them. So he took matters into his own hands, swallowing his pride and began to practice day and night. Of course, he wasn’t a prodigy, but this caused him to be quick on his feet in numerous situations.

Whether it was sprinting from his sisters who were trying to smear makeup all over his face, or dodging one of his friends punches (which were supposed to be funny, but holy crap, they hurt), he noticed that after a while he was able to build up stamina, and instinctively avoid things that could potentially harm him. There wasn’t much urgency in it since he wasn’t bullied or in a household where he had to worry about things like that. Maybe the lack of priority in his task was what sped up the process, but either way, it was an advantage. But it definitely helped build up his confidence, and Elias noticed an improvement when he started to kick his sisters’ butts on the ice.

When he started to play quidditch, it was very, very different. Hockey, of course, had a bit of violence, but nothing like this. There were literal giant, metal balls flying around trying to knock you off a flying wooden stick so you’d go unconscious. That… was different. In fact, it was terrifying. Elias spent most of his time playing the game trying not to get killed by the bludgers zooming across the field. And it worked, for the most part. But Elias won’t ever forget the first time he’d ever gotten hit by a bludger. Thinking about it still hurts his head to this day. He was flying, about to make a winning goal, and all of a sudden, he flew right into the ball and everything went black. From that day forth, he’s been way, way more careful of his surroundings to make sure he doesn’t have to go through something as painful as that again.

Fearless

Reducio

When you live with four raging, emotional sisters… It’s more than a little challenging to be scared. Especially when they’re all in a small little clique and prank you whenever they get the chance. And when most of them are magical and have random outbursts when they’re angry. This was the case for Elias Oja, and while he loved his sisters, they tortured him to the point where he was unphased by almost anything. It was still annoying but at one point he began to catch on when they were scheming and when they weren’t. Even when their father took them to see a scary movie, Elias would barely flinch at the cheap scares that were standing before him. It’d take more than a deformed face on a screen or one of his sisters making plates fly across the kitchen to give him nightmares.

Being in a wizarding family, weird things happen and you have to be ready for them, after all. And when your mother is a herbologist and brings deadly plants home, you have to be ready for that too. Elias learned that the hard way. After many dumb impulse choices out of curiosity. And many trips to the hospital. And lots of berating from both his mother and father for his trouble.

And while Elias likes to think he’s big and brave, his bravery also comes from, well, stupidity. He’s honestly quite oblivious to things happening around him most of the time. He could be reading and not even notice that there’s a fistfight happening right in front of him, or sometimes even get lost in his own thoughts and find himself in trouble with people. It’s honestly a little concerning how thick his skull is, but at least it comes with perks. It makes it pretty easy to get revenge on his sisters when they’re scared of bugs and he isn’t.

After being accustomed to the quirks and strange experiences that came with magic abilities at home, even Durmstrang didn’t really surprise him at all. Of course, the magical creatures, spell backfires, and more startled him. But they weren’t insane. He isn’t completely fearless, being a teenager comes with your mind moving from thought to thought at a mile a minute. Elias has anxiety and overthinks things just like most people, but just not about killer clowns or anything else out of the ordinary.

Quidditch

Positions (in order of priority)
Chaser
Beater
Second-string beater

Approved

Alisa Sokolova

Full name: Alisa Alekseyevna Sokolova
Year: Fourth Year
Date of birth: January 15th, 2006
Blood status: Half-blood

Avatar: Eva Green

Appearance:
Alisa has dark brown, curly hair, like her mother. She’s thin as a stick and a good bit taller than the average 14-year-old, which makes her stick out in a group of her peers. It also makes her somewhat self-conscious about her appearance, as her body doesn’t match the beauty standards she would like to fit into. Her skin is fairly light, with a few freckles here and there, especially across the bridge of her nose, and her eyes are clear blue in color. That is something that she got from her father’s side of the family, same as the tall build. When at school she normally wears wizarding attire, which makes her fit in with the crowd a lot more than muggle clothing would, but during the summer break she wears the same jeans and shirts as all the other teenagers in her neighborhood.

Personality:
If one would need to describe Alisa in one word it would be spiteful. She wants to get back at the cousins who mock her daily for being a lowly half-blood, at the classmates who look down at her because she reads muggle science books, at the parents of her muggle friends who think she’s the child of a good-for-nothing school dropout who drove his wife away.

Alisa wants to prove them wrong, all of them. She has lived with the assumptions of others dictating her life since she was 9 and it has made her a defiant person. If she feels attacked her retaliation will be prompt and hostile, if not downright nasty. Words are weapons, weapons that have been used against her and her family, and now she uses them to get back at the world. Her natural stubbornness only makes it worse for her, as she won’t back down from a fight unless somebody makes her.

She’s different with her family of course: adores her father and loves her grandparents – her mother’s parents – dearly. Alisa is very attentive to their needs and moods, especially those of her father Aleksey. He’s the most important person in her life, and she will go out of her way to be there for him whenever she can. She helps him with muggle crossword puzzles, always cleans the dishes after dinner and will listen to him for hours when he explains her this or that triviality about his work. This, the patience, is a part of her too, but it’s one only her close friends and family get to experience.

Underneath the bravado and the biting words, Alisa has the potential to be a good friend, an unbiased listener, somebody who can see another person without prejudice because she knows how it is to be judged for simply being who you are. Those are qualities few people get to see, however, as she doesn’t consider most of her peers worth the effort to be kind to them.

History:

Reducio

Alisa Alekseyevna Sokolova was born the daughter of the pure-blood wizard Aleksey Vasilyevich Sokolov and the muggle woman Marya Miroslavivna Volkova on the 15th of January 2006 in a muggle hospital in Saint Petersburg.

Her parents had met at the Saint Petersburg State University just over 2 years earlier. Her mother had been a student of the Faculty of Physics, while her father had taken courses at the Faculty of Chemistry. They had been opposites from the start.

Aleksey was the heir of the Sokolov family, who prided themselves on being able to trace their pure-blood ancestry back for hundreds of years down the family tree. He was the older of a set of twins, destined for greatness according to their parents, smart and good-looking and with enough money that the former two didn’t even really matter. As the older brother it was Aleksey who was raised to become the next family head, while his younger brother Nikolay had more freedom to do as he pleased, both at school and at home. Aleksey had been fascinated with the art of potion brewing for a young age, and while it wasn’t the profession his parents had envisioned for him it still carried the prospect of great prestige. At 15 he left Durmstrang to learn under a master in the field – an honor that rarely was awarded to one that young and that his parents paid good money for.

Six year later, at 21, Aleksey had learned what he could from only one master, and moved on. He needed to make a name for himself, his family agreed, to become his own man. Muggle university wasn’t what they’d had in mind, but he didn’t care much for their protest, stating that he wanted to learn new techniques, see new ideas, learn things the old masters had never been taught. Nikolay wasn’t impressed either, somewhere between wonder and disgust at the thought that his twin wanted to spend time around dangerous muggles. He’d met a fascinating young woman, however, after finishing his 8th year at Durmstrang, and didn’t give more than a token protest. So Aleksey moved from the family seat in Ekaterinburg to Saint Petersburg to study.

Marya was the only daughter of two muggle storeowners who owned a small grocery shop in the middle of Saint Petersburg. She was the apple of their eye, their clever little girl who completed their little family. The shop was always busy, but Marya liked to around when her parents worked, enjoyed being among all the people who knew her name and smiled at her when they saw her. She was a happy child.

School was easy for the girl. She was a fast learner, liked to read and was especially fascinated by science. Both the teachers and her parents were delighted by her eagerness to learn and she went through school like a whirlwind, picking up all that she got until suddenly it was over and she was supposed what she wanted to do with her life.

The concept of going to the stars had always fascinated her, and when a film they showed for university orientation showcased an astronaut, Marya knew what she wanted to do: bring people up there, make the universe available to people, to send them up there into the endless sky to learn even more about the world. The Facility of Physics at the state university took her gladly.

This was where they met.

A common lecture in Chemical Physics brought them together, and their thirst for new ideas was what made them meet again and again, to discuss theories and latest breakthroughs. They shared a love for creating new concepts and a willingness to leave behind the old in favor of trying new approaches – the difference between them was that Marya didn’t know that there was a world she didn’t know of hidden right inside her own, a world of magic.

Aleksey showed her, one summer night, drew star maps into the air with the tip of his hand, levitated her by her clothes and conjured a bouquet of flowers for her. They started dating a month later.

Marya’s parents were smitten with the polite young man her daughter brought home, so well-mannered and careful, albeit a little bit scatterbrained at times, but he made their daughter happy so who were they to complain? Aleksey’s parents… didn’t know. Dating a muggle was taboo, a real one, something that wouldn’t be simply seen as eccentric like his stay at a muggle university. He knew that his family wouldn’t tolerate this muggle girlfriend, but somehow made himself believe that they wouldn’t find out.

Then Marya became pregnant. It came as surprise to both of them, an unforeseen accident, but a gift nonetheless. Still Aleksey didn’t tell his parents of his partner and child, told Marya that they were uptight aristocrats who had their own views of the world, outdated views that made them intolerant.

Alisa was born in the middle of a snow storm.

Her parents married in spring, less than four months later and only then, their small family, complete, did Aleksey realize that this, his muggle wife, their child, his muggle parents-in-law, his muggle friends at university, the potioneers he discussed muggle science with just as much as the new articles in Potions Today, had become his life. His family had been replaced, his values had too, as had the belief in the superiority of wizards and witches his parents had tried to instill into him as a child – but maybe that one had been a lost cause from the beginning.

So he went home, alone, to tell his family of his wife and daughter. He went home and came back to Saint Petersburg 2 days later, disowned and shunned from the family until he renounced his muggle wife and the shame he had brought to the family.

Nikolay was the one who took his hardest. He had admired his brother’s smarts and drive, had been envious of his position as future heir of the family and the special attention Aleksey got from their parents and grandparents.

Aleksey dropped out of the muggle university to begin work as a Potions Master again, to brew and sell so his wife could continue her education and gain the PhD she had studied for for so long. He went home, to Marya’s parents his time, and confessed his secret to them, showed them magic because they deserved to know what they had gotten into by allowing him into the family. It was their acceptance, their belief that his magic didn’t change who he was as a person, that made him turn on the Sokolov family and pure-blood society for good.

Their new life was a happy one. Marya graduated from university and gained a position with Roscosmos to work on the development of new Russian space ship concepts. Aleksey became a stay-at-home dad then, who took care of Alisa and helped out in the family shop while brewing potions to sell and working on developing his own recipes.

Every odd year his birth-family would try to contact him, something his father or his mother, his brother being the most persistent. They missed him, they said, wanted him to come back to wizardkind and leave the muggles to themselves. Aleksey always declined, to the anger of his family who wouldn’t understand why he had picked muggles over them.

When Alisa was 9, her mother was involved in an accident – or at least that was what military officer who came to their flat told them, that there had been an accident with a prototype and experimental rocket fuel. He was vague, only told them that Marya had been transferred to a military hospital and was unconscious.

Even at her young age Alisa understood how distraught her father was. They wouldn’t let them visit until the next day, and Aleksey made plans to use magic to get into the hospital on his own, to find out what had happened to his wife. Alisa was so distraught by her mother’s disappearance and her father’s crying that she used accidental magic that made them both fall asleep at night.

When they visited the hospital Marya was still not awake and remained comatose for the next 3 weeks. Nobody would tell them what had happened to her, and save for a few cuts and bruises on her legs and arms that healed she looked fine. Aleksey had his suspicions, but was too upset by his wife’s bad state to investigate them.

Marya woke up, however, finally. Alisa still remember how happy she had been to see her mother again, that she could hug her again and go back home and that everything would go back to normal- until her mother recognized neither her nor her father. Marya had no memory of them, didn’t remember anything that had happened in the last 14 years. Her memory ended over a year before she had first met Aleksey, and while she remembered her old friends and parents, she saw her husband and daughter as strangers.

Alisa cried for days, not understanding why her mother didn’t remember her or want to be close to her, watching her father try to make her remember with everything he knew. He even tried magic to restore her memory, but it helped nothing and left Marya upset and horrified. She hadn’t retained her memory of magic either and was scared when her unknown husband pointed his wand at her. Her parents tried to explain, to smooth things over, but it didn’t help.

One day Marya was gone from their flat, leaving a note that she couldn’t deal with all this anymore and that she wasn’t sure if she would come back.

She didn’t. Instead Alisa’s uncle Nikolay came knocking at their door not even a week later. She had never met him before, he was a stranger to her, but he offered her to came home to their family, him and her father both, and Aleksey cursed him out, screaming, Statue Of Secrecy be damned. Only years later did she understand that her father didn’t trust his brother, had taken his wife’s mysterious loss of memory and his brother’s convenient timing and taken it to mean that Nikolay had been somehow involved in what had happened.

Aleksey stopped working on Potions, didn’t touch a cauldron for over a year but instead went to help her grandparents with the shops – there were two then – to escape the memories. They grieved together for their wife and daughter, the woman they had lost. Alisa staid close them, didn’t want to lose her father and grandparents like she had lost her mother. She barely left their side and didn’t even want to go to school or play outside for long.

That ended when she was 10 and started Durmstrang. She begged her father to let her stay, but he sent her away thinking that she needed to have a chance to grow up, away from the pain their family shared. Alisa wasn’t excited for it, however, the magical school her father had gone too. She didn’t have friends there and it was far enough from home that she would only see her family during the holidays. The thought frightened her.

School was both better and worse than she had expected. She liked the material better than muggle school, liked the teachers better because they didn’t know her history, didn’t treat her like a broken doll. The other students she could learn to care for, maybe find friends. That had been her plan until she’d first met the Second Third boy Kirill Nikolayevich Sokolov – her cousin. Kirill told everyone about her, that her mother was non-magical, that her and Alisa had shamed the family, that Marya had run away from them because muggles hated wizards.

She found friends eventually, but only few would ignore Kirill’s talk long enough to bother to get to know her. Many of the other students didn’t, however, having never met a muggle and thinking of them as vile and cruel people who couldn’t be trusted. It only got worse when her younger cousin Nikita joined the school a year later.

Alisa had been delighted at the offer to visit Hogwarts along with the Quidditch team – not because she had any interest in Quidditch, but because it would be the first time in almost 4 years of school where she wouldn’t have to listen to her cousins’ taunts every day.

Family:
Mother: Marya Miroslavivna Volkova / Sokolova (muggle)
Father: Aleksey Vasilyevich Sokolov (pure-blood)

Uncle: Nikolay Vasilyevich Sokolov (pure-blood)
Cousins: Kirill Nikolayevich Sokolov (pure-blood), Nikita Nikolayevich Sokolov (pure-blood)

Grandfather (father's side): Vasily Ivanovich Sokolov (pure-blood)
Grandmother (father's side): Natalya Yurinichna Sokolova (pure-blood)

Grandfather (mother's side): Miroslav Pyotrevich Volkov (muggle)
Grandmother (mother's side): Elvira Daniilovna Volkova (muggle)

Is your character a Quidditch player? No

Approved

Alisa Alekseyevna Sokolova

Stats: Stamina: 7 Evasion: 7 Strength: 4 Wisdom: 9 Arcane Power: 11 Accuracy: 7

Abilities:

Year 1 – Evasive Maneuvers

Reducio

The second thing Durmstrang taught Alisa, after the fact that everything on the castle grounds would kill a First Year student given the chance, was how to dodge.

She met her cousin Kirill for the first time on the first morning after they had come back from the survival training with the headmistress. Having a full night of sleep in a comfortable bed, the luxury of a hot shower in the morning and a breakfast table laden with delicious-smelling food made it her best day in well, pretty much exactly a week. She still didn’t know the other First Year girls well, missed her father, her grandparents and her friends from muggle school, but on that morning she had hope. Hope, that now that they were in the castle things would settle down and she’d be able to learn to get accustomed to life at Durmstrang.

The thing was that they shared a name. She hadn’t known that she had any cousins, had seen her uncle exactly once and never met her grandparents on her father’s side of the family. In theory Alisa was aware that there was a Russian pure-blood family called Sokolov, that she had relatives, that they featured prominently in magical society, but it had never affected her in any way.

Kirill on the other hand knew of her existence, knew that he had a cousin by his blood traitor uncle who had shamed their family by marrying a muggle. When he heard that there was a First Year girl in the dorms who shared his name, a name reserved for the great and the powerful, and that she was a half-blood, he knew who she was.

Their first interaction was horrible. Within ten minutes Alisa had a goblet of apple juice poured over her head by the Third Year and been cursed to hell and back. It earned him a detention, but if anything Kirill was proud of it, of having shown the girl her place.

Alisa spent her first year of school learning to anticipate when the spells would come flying, when somebody would try to trip her up from nowhere, when somebody was about to shove her from behind. Any place without a professor present meant that she was open game to her cousin and his pure-blood friends. They used her as target practice for the new spells they had learned or simply try to push her around bodily.

She didn’t know what the thought, that maybe she would leave Durmstrang if only he made school dreadful enough for her. Alisa, however, was stubborn and a fast learner. They didn’t learn many spells that were useful for dueling in their first year, with meant that she couldn’t fight back, but it didn’t mean that she had to take their bullying. Instead Alisa adapted. Her reflexes got better, her senses a bit sharper, her intuition better.

Running was for cowards, Kirill yelled after her once, but then he was a Third Year and never alone when he came for her, so she didn’t think he was the authority on that. Run Alisa did, however. She was lanky and fast and became good at jumping and ducking. It wasn’t always enough of course, there were days when she came back to the girls tower drenched in melted snow, or with her scarf missing, or with a scrap on her hand from when she’d fallen down. Still, she didn’t give up and vowed to become even better at dodging the attacks. She wouldn’t give her cousin the satisfaction of seeing her cry.

WC: 595

Year 2 – Fearless

Reducio

If you are exposed to something enough, you will become immune to it.

Alisa had been a happy child when she’d been younger, before her mother had been put into the hospital, before she had lost her memory and left them all alone. It had shaped her to see her lying motionless in her hospital bed, the machines in the room beeping but not a sound coming from her mama. She’d been so scared, scared that she would never wake up, that she’d never talk to her or play with her again, that she would be gone. In retrospect it might have been the more merciful path, to watch her mother die, to mourn her but keep all the good memories of her while doing it. Untainted.

Instead Marya had woken up, woken and looked at Alisa and not recognized her. Her mama had looked at her like she was a stranger, without the love that used to be in her eyes whenever she looked at her daughter. That had scared Alisa more than the coma, that no matter what she told her or showed her, her mother didn’t know who she was.

Then, one morning, she’d been gone. What if she’d never come back? What if she’d never see mama again? There was more fear, fear and grief and Alisa had cried for days. What if her father would forget about her too? What if he’d leave her too, and her grandparents as well and she’d be all alone? She had latched onto them, afraid that they would vanish from her life as well, that all the people she loved would be gone one day.

The thought staid with her, a nagging fear at the back of her mind, one that was always there no matter how hard she tried to push it away.

Going to Durmstrang only made it worse. It separated Alisa from her family, meant that she’d be away from them for months on end. What if they wouldn’t be there one day, if she came home to an empty flat?

Then there was Kirill (and later Nikita) who made her afraid to leave her dorm on her own, to walk through the corridors or be outside by herself, to still be in the library after dark. They and their stuck-up pure-blood friends haunted her whenever they had the time. There were others of course, older girls the dorm who looked down on her for her muggle mother or pitied her because she had ditched them, but Alisa learned to tune them out, to ignore their words and their looks.

She’d spent four years of her life afraid until one day she didn’t flinch anymore when somebody said something nasty behind her back, didn’t cringe away when her cousin walked by her on the way to class.

Alisa had become numb to it, the fear. She was so used to it, so attuned it, that somehow it stopped mattering. What if Kirill would hex her? He’d done it multiple times before and he’d do it again, being afraid of it wouldn’t change anything. What if the older girls judged her for a mother who’d run away and never come back? Alisa couldn’t change their opinion, couldn’t change that they considered her inferior just because of her blood.

She was too stubborn to give in, to hide and cry and pity herself. Fear was useless. It stopped affecting her the same way it affected other people. It was a permanent companion that she knew was there but stopped caring about.

WC: 593

Year 3 – Perfectionist

Reducio

On the first day of her Third Year at Durmstrang, in the early afternoon when the students had just arrived at the castle an Kirill was already staring at her hatefully from across the courtyard, Alisa had enough.

She was done being afraid of him, and she would be done running from him and standing in his shadow as well.

His mother was a pure-blood and her mother a muggle. So what? It didn’t make her father any less talented of a potions master, didn’t make her uncle any less of a vile asshole, didn’t make Kirill any less of an arrogant brat. Who did he think he was, looking down on her just because he’d grown up in magical society and she hadn’t?

Those thoughts had always be there in the back of her head, a source of bitterness and anger she’d tried to ignore because felling that way wouldn’t change anything. Even if it wouldn’t, however, even if he would get away with casting spells at her in dark corners, she was done giving him the satisfaction of saying that she was below him, that her father had been rightfully cast out from the family (Alisa knew that he’d left long before they’d cast him out, but her cousin obviously had never been told that particular fact about their family history).

Alisa Alekseyevna Sokolova would show her cousin and the whole school that she was just as good as any of them, that her father was a great man with a great daughter, and could call stick their entitlement up their asses.

She’d always been one of the better students. Alisa enjoyed studying, enjoyed learning new things, learning about magic. Class had been one of the places where everyone treated her the same, where the professors graded her just as harshly as they graded a student with more magical blood in the family. It came easy to Alisa to study even harder, to practice any spell another and another and another time until she got it absolutely right. She enjoyed history and astronomy, sat over books well into the night, memorizing all the information she could, piling up more and more knowledge.

Her grades got better and her spellwork more advanced, her jinxes came harsher and she was the first to raise her hand in class more often than not. Alisa wanted to be the best. Because if she was the others would have to live with the knowledge that they had lost to a half-blood girl with a muggle mother.

She was done with their shit. Spite made her strive for perfection, to be the best of her class, her year, to be the one the professors used as an example to show the other students how diligent they should be in their work.

The fight was on.

WC: 471

Stats: Approved
Abilities: Approved

Durmstrang iNPC: Alisa Sokolova

1.) Is your character a Broom Racer? No.
2.) Is your character a Quidditch Player? No.
3.) Is your character a Duelist? Yes.

4.) Stats
Fourth Year: 45 + 5 = 50.

Stamina: 8
Evasion: 8
Strength: 4
Wisdom: 10
Arcane Power: 12
Accuracy: 8

5.) Abilities:

Fourth Year – Advanced Casting

Reducio

By the time Alisa had made it to Fourth Year her cousin Kirill was a Sixth Year fresh into the Combat Class of Durmstrang Institute. Oh, she had become good with spells, adept at throwing jinxes and the occasional hex, at looking like a well-behaved girl the moment a teacher appeared to see what the ruckus was about. Her eyes were blue and big and gullible enough to fool an adult who didn't know better, who hadn't seen first hand how vicious her spellwork could become the second her cousins were involved.

She had become somewhat of a standout pupil, at least in those subjects were first grade wandwork made the difference between good and excellent work. The professors had noticed how persistent the teenage girl was the moment spellwork was involved. Alisa had the advantage of having a Potions Master for a father, of having grown up reading books, and while it helped her in the subjects that related more to pure theory, ironically it was magic where she shone the most.

Her rivalry, if it could be called that, with her cousins and her spiteful need to outdo them and any other pure-blood had pushed her onto the path of becoming an brilliant duelist one day – a skill that Alisa bitterly needed the moment Kirill started studying martial magic in earnest.

No matter how good she was, her cousin was two years older and getting proper training at how to whip somebody's ass in a duel.

Another child, a less stubborn person, would have given up. Alisa had found friends, true friends, by then, had gathered somewhat of a reputation, had been invited to visit London for the School Quidditch Tournament. By all accounts she was making her family proud – and they were, her father elated that she had found a second home at Durmstrang, her grandparents beaming whenever they saw her report card at the end of the school year, telling their friends of their bright granddaughter who had earned a scholarship at a high-class boarding school.

The thing was that for Alisa it wasn't enough.

One day, she would put Kirill on his ass (Nikita was another matter, a boy younger than her, the second son, not as wicked as his elder brother). He had become the bar she measured herself against, the wall she needed to climb to prove that she had truly made it, that she'd become an accomplished witch.

Alisa wanted to be peerless. She would do better than any pure-blood. She would show them, once and for all, that her muggle blood was no taint to be ashamed of, that it was what made her better.

So picked up her wand again and again, until her fingers hurt and her eyes swam, to throw that jinx one more time, and another and another.

WC: 471

Face Claim: Willow Shields

Name:
Milena Sergejevna Orlova

School:
Durmstrang

School Year:
Fourth Year

Bloodstatus:
Pureblood

Appearance:

Reducio

Milena, even at 14 years old, is still very much a child of a slender build, and has some ways to go to grow taller, if her mother and sister are any indication. She has hazel eyes and what she would call dirty-ish blond straight hair that she near always keeps in a braid. She is pale skinned but not sickly so. She looks more like her grandmother than her mother, she thinks and probably closer to her elder brother than her sister, too. That does not mean that she has particularly boyish traits, but her sister’s facial structure is near identical to their mother, while theirs is not. At school she wears the school uniform. In her mind, there is no sense in attempting to wear anything else (apart from pyjamas to bed) while attending the school since that is what the school uniform is for. She always wears a necklace with an owl of Minerva hidden underneath her uniform, that her father gifted her with. (He had gifted all of them with a token related to their almost-names on their 10th birthdays.)

179 words

Personality:

Reducio

While at first glance, Milena might seem cold and aloof and very much not interested in interacting with anyone, she actually likes being around people and talking to them. Growing up somewhat isolated around her siblings, she never quite learned how to meet new people and so there are very few at Durmstrang that she could consider friends. While she is always willing to help if someone asks her for it, it never occurs to her to offer any.

She remembers her grand-parents teachings – that superiority was something to be inherently known, something to feel but not something to show or flaunt – so she treats Muggle-Borns or Half-Bloods no different than Pure-Bloods on the outside. However, she thought of them quite differently. She always had known, no, believed them to be less but as she began to count one such a Half-Blood amongst her true friends, her attitude thawed and she began to question her grand-parents philosophy. Surely her friend could not be ‘less’ than some of the idiots that attended the school.

She is not someone of many words, unless she is surrounded by very few specific people – most of whom are her siblings. In the beginning of her time at Durmstrang she often felt lonely and could be considered melancholic but by now she’s begun enjoying being apart from her siblings. While they attend the same school, they do not interact so much on a normal day. She likes being her own person without the almost-flaw of not being a twin.

She likes to paint, it is something that reminds her of the times when she was little and watching her father create his art. She’s not particularly good at it but she does not let that fact deter her. To her painting (or drawing) is about the process, not the end result. Books are fine if a bit boring. She prefers spoken stories to the written word. She is an auditory learner, too, so she could often be found quietly reading school texts to herself or occasionally someone else.

342 words

History:

Reducio

The Sands family history is an interesting one. One of their ancestors fled Britain hiding out amongst the convicts the Muggles send to the penal colony at Botany Bay, Australia at the turn of the 18th into the 19th century. He had changed his name to Henry Sands and hid amongst the Muggles to smuggle himself out of the country. While said ancestor never admitted what forced him to flee the British Pure-Blood society, his method of escape is still remembered because it was in the penal colony where he met Aimée, a Half-French Pureblood orphan that had been convicted and shipped there for stealing food to survive.

Unlike him though, she had not kept herself apart from the Muggles and actually studied and learned from them. After defeating him in a duel – that she won by using Muggle fighting techniques and her surroundings as well as her (limited) knowledge of spells to win – Henry proposed to her for the first time. Since then the family had made a point of interacting with Muggles to use their knowledge and contraptions for their own gains. Originally that had only meant fighting styles or weapons but with everything Muggles have invented since then, that evolved.

Of course, the family never forgot that they were far superior to Muggles. After all, they could actually use electricity and their other inventions (to some degree, if they were careful not to use too much magic around it). However, that did not mean that they relied on Muggle contraptions in their own home. Still, according to several generations of the family, Muggles were there to be exploited though they were raised not to show disdain when they had to interact with Muggles. (Also, there was no need to fear contact as “being Muggle” is not something contagious.) Their superiority as Wizards was a given so there was no need to flaunt it. After all, if you had to prove it was it anything other than a front?

Lately that attitude had started to change somewhat. Milena's great-great-grandfather had begun to look out outside the country for spouses for the family to avoid “inbreeding” as the population in Australia was somewhat scarce. Her grandfather Oleander, for example, went looking for a wife in Canada and found someone he deemed worthy in Aubrey Greene. However, Aubrey only bore him three daughters and no sons. One of their daughters did not survive to adulthood and the other two went looking for their husbands in other countries (as family tradition dictated by then), making Oleander and Aubrey the last Sands in Australia. [From their family (branch) at least.]

Helen married into a German Pure-Blood family, while Kathryn found love in Sergej Mikhailovich Orlov, a man almost fifteen years older than her. Her parents were a bit wary of their age gap, even though it was not even that much for wizarding folk but he was her choice. Sergej's parents were not all too happy about the match either, having hoped to betroth their son to a nice Russian girl after he had had some time to follow his silly passion – Sergej was utterly fascinated by all kinds of mythologies, which is how Milena and her siblings almost gained their names. In the end, his parents agreed to the match as they could see that the woman made their son happy and she was of a Pure-Blood Family. (A Russian Pure-Blood would have been preferred but better an Australian one than a Wizard-Born witch, or, gods forbid, a Half-Blood one.) However they put their foot down on her name. If she married into the family, she would have to change her name into its Russian version, making her Yekaterina from their wedding day forward. She did not care as long as she got to marry the man she chose.

Later, Yekaterina was quite glad that she had been forced to change her first name. Her husband loved Mythology and she had barely managed to talk him out of choosing Aztec names for their children, making him insist on Roman names instead. She enlisted the help of her parents-in-law to ensure that her children received normal Russian names – which does not mean that they do not have a list of the name the children would have had (Quirinus, Concordia, Minerva, Silvanus & Mercurius) nor does it stop them (especially Sergej) from using those names as an additional middle name in those situations where yelling (one of) their children’s full name is deemed appropriate.

Milena is the third child of five children and the only one without a twin amongst her siblings. While her parents love all their children equally, her grandparents adore all their grandchildren, and her siblings love her as she loves them, she is very much the odd one out amongst them. Ivan and Olga as well as Pavel and Fyodor are pairs of twins and far closer to each other's twin than to any of their other siblings. They are all still close but sometimes, when the twins are all doing their twin things, she is lonely. It has gotten worse since her older siblings started at Durmstrang. With five people she was often the odd one out, yes, but with only three children at home... She always was as soon as the younger twins ran off.

The closest city to their family's property is probably Yakutsk, but even that would be a two days walk to the south east so there are no other children around to play with as she grew up. Sure, there were some she met at Society Galas and other such events that her family had to attend but for the most part she grew up isolated, surrounded by her family with occasional trips to Yakutsk or the Magical District of St.Petersburg or Moscow [or wherever the Diagon Alley equivalent in Russia is located] if the family needed or wanted to buy something.

Sergej was a painter. While his passion for Mythology first led him to admire art and then to attempt to create art himself, he made the most of his money for creating magical portraits of people. There he had made a name for himself. Only occasionally would he be able to sell a purely decorative piece. (Her grandparents still thought his passion and his choice of work silly but at least he was a if not the go-to name if one needed a magical portrait painted.) Kathryn had apprenticed at a Apothecary back in Australia, but since her marriage to Sergej she became a stay-at-home mother though she occasionally sold simple potions or remedies to acquaintances. It was not quite the life she had imagined but she was glad for the opportunity to raise her children without having to worry about money. While the Orlov family was not that particularly rich, they were wealthy enough that they did not really need to work, which left them plenty of time to home-school their children before they attended Durmstrang.

And so Milena and her siblings grew up in a financially secure environment but they were not overly spoiled. They were moderately wealthy, yes, but their parents did not have the money (or the inclination) for lavish gifts. If something worked, if something was whole, there was no need to replace it. Several of Milena's dresses had once belonged to Olga, as had some of Pavel's and Fyodor's clothes to Ivan. Not all of their clothing were hand-me-downs, absolutely not, but if a piece of clothing was in good condition but simply had grown too small for the elder siblings..? Then it was still good enough for the younger ones. At least what clothes they wore at home. For societal events they did all have their own dress robes.

Her first instance of magic happened at one of the societal galas – the first one she had to attend. Overwhelmed by all the unknown people – there had been so many of them suddenly and in such close proximity, too – she had fled to the upper floor of the mansion the gala had been held in, in the hopes to find some quiet there to get a grip on herself and get over the initial panic before she braved the chaos again – she knew she could not simply disappear: it was important that she was seen at this event, after all it was her first introduction to some other appropriate children her age to interact with. It was not to be, however. She had just reached the top of the stairs as two women – possibly about her mother’s age – turned from the hallway to make their way down the stairs to the gala. The women, preoccupied with their conversation as they were, did not see the little girl until they had bumped into her and made her fall down the stairs. However, instead of falling and injuring herself, she harmlessly bounced down the stairs and landed at the bottom without a hair out of place.

1494 words

Family:

Reducio

Grandfather: Oleander Sands

Grandmother: Aubrey Sands née Greene

Grandfather: Mikhail Mikhailovich Orlov

Grandmother: Natalya Ivanova Orlova (formerly Natalya Ivanova Tolstaya)

Mother: Yekaterina Orlova (fromerly Kathryn Sands)

Father: Sergej Mikhailovich Orlov

Older (twin) siblings: Ivan Sergeyevitch Orlov & Olga Sergejevna Orlova (16 years old)

Younger (twin) siblings: Pavel Sergeyevitch Orlov & Fyodor Sergeyevitch Orlov (11 years old)

Aunt: Helen Sands von Neuneck

Uncle: Friedrich Ferdinand von Neuneck

Cousins: Mathilde Magdalena (17), Gustav Gerhard (16) & Helena Hedwig (9)

Is your character a Quidditch Player?: No.

Approved

Name: Milena Sergejevna Orlova Year: Fifth (so, 50 stat points & 4 abilities) 1.) Is your character a Broom Racer?: No. 2.) Is your character a Quidditch Player?: No. 3.) Is your character a Duelist?: Maybe... No. Stats: Stamina: 6 Evasion: 10 Strength: 8 Wisdom: 10 Arcane Power: 9 Accuracy: 7

Ability 1: Perfectionist

Reducio

Milena is not a perfectionist in the sense that she wants to be perfect at everything, but she grew up as the daughter of a Pure-Blood house and that had several expectations attached. True, her parents were probably a lot less strict than her grandparents had been and being one of five siblings lent to far more unruliness than being an only child might have, but it did not change one fundamental fact: She was a Pure-Blood daughter and as such would always, always represent her family.

And so, like her siblings, she was taught how to present herself: how to talk, how to walk, how to sit, how to... You get the gist. She was also taught to always be courteous, no matter what she might think of a person's value. She was taught how to be a perfect little lady – if only for the duration of societal galas and not quite for every-day home-life. In other words, she was taught how to seem the perfect young lady and that included certain guidelines on how to act at school and what was expected of her school performance.

Trying to do her family proud, Milena did her best to excel at school which meant that she took care to learn all spells and potions properly. Lessons were for learning. Pranks, distractions, fun... all that she considered to have little to no place in a lesson – not that a teacher could not make a lesson fun, that was different – and she could not understand why someone would rather play around with their friends than pay attention – that's what the free time between lessons was for and the time in the evening that wasn't spend on homework.

While that mind-set had thawed a little as she grew older just as her stance on her grandparents' teachings did, she was still a very dedicated student. The one thing she had never perfected, however, was her script. She had tried to painstakingly teach herself to write perfect, exact letters, like the ones of her grandmother... but unlike her grandmother, she had no such talent. Her school notes and homework are perfectly legible but that particularly neat. Given enough time, she can write clean enough to imitate her grandmother's script – but there is no such time to be had when it comes to school work.

The older she grew and the more her mind-sets thawed, the more those Pure-Blood expectations chafed... but not enough for Milena to think it worth it to rebel. She found it annoying, yes, restrictive, yes, but not oppressive (yet at least) and so she still saw it as her duty to attempt to meet them.

WC: 450

Ability 2: Evasive Manoeuvers

Reducio

Growing up with her siblings, especially with three brothers taught her how to dodge. The younger twins had not paid enough attention often enough that she had almost developed a sixth sense of when one of the would come careening down a corridor and almost running her over.

Despite being part of a Pure-Blood family, they had been allowed time to just be themselves – there was no need to always be perfect sons and daughters if it was only them and their parents at home – it had led to multiple prank wars, mainly between the sets of twins but neither she nor her parents had escaped those completely unscathed. Her parents, especially, were never targeted but there was always some spill-over.

Her parents had been of the impression that if they were raised spending time learning how to be the perfect progeny and also being given time to run free, that it would be easier for them to control themselves in a social situation – like a gala. Masks and restrictions were easier to bear, in their minds, if they were not needed around (the immediate) family and it was better to let loose a bit and work of restless energy by engaging in such prank wars or going on little adventures on their property, than keeping it all in, and in, and in – until it either imploded or exploded. No, her parents believed in a healthy balance of the two, much to both Milena's chagrin and her delight.

She had little in the way of muscles – she wasn't weak but neither was she particularly strong – but she was lithe and agile. She had spent significantly less time rough-housing than her brothers and probably also less than her sister, although Olga had participated far less as she 'grew out of that phase'. Still, being a bystander was not so safe and she had ample practice in evading flailing limbs or occasional thrown objects (nothing potentially dangerous but it was still not nice to be hit in the face with crumbled-up parchment.)

Another reason might be that the one area of 'Pure-Blood' upbringing she had excelled in far beyond her sister (not that that was hard) was dancing. Moving gracefully and with the flow was something she had a much easier time with than Olga. But Milena would not call herself a talented dancer outside a comparison to her siblings.

It came in handy also when it came to not tripping over things. Her spatial awareness was normally quite good and if she did miss something she easily managed to keep her balance (most of the time) and carry on as if there had been no obstacle in her path, no matter how small it might have been.

There had also been the fencing lessons as her grandfather insisted that at the very least her brothers if not all the children (and it had turned into all the children) receive some basic fencing lesson to learn how to move in a fight instead of 'standing stock-still like an idiot' (Grandfather Oleander's words, not hers) as too many wizards apparently did. The less to be said about those lessons the better, tough, and she was still not sure what use they might have been if any.

WC: 549

Ability 3: Calming Presence

Reducio

Over time, Milena noticed that she seemed to have a calming effect on both friends and family as well as other people she knew. Maybe it was because she always seemed aloof and calm and therefore spreading an aura of calm? Maybe it was because when others outside her immediate circle saw her, she always seemed while not inviting still open and kind?

Whatever it was, exactly, she had found that she had the ability to appear neutral and defuse tense situations as well as calm tempers or soothe tears – when helping new students with their first bouts of homesickness. It was not something she planned on or actively promoted, in truth, she had not said one word of it.

But she had come upon one firstie crying bitterly because he missed home and she had – well, first she had tried to leave and leave him to his privacy, but he had noticed her and after paling and then flushing in embarrassment, the boy had apparently stopped caring as he had thrown himself at her and continued to sob in her arms.

While she privately thought of him as weak and far from the representative of his house he should be, she was raised to be better than to show disdain. Besides, she was compassionate enough to feel for him anyway, and so she merely enveloped him in a – slightly awkward by the fact they had never met before – hug and proceeded to try and soothe his fears enough for him to compose himself again.

She had figured that would have been the end of it. Alas, he apparently told some of his class mates that she was a good listener or something, so she had been occasionally sought out to allay some fears of the unknown.

Somehow there was the general impression that she was not someone to judge people needlessly, no. She would offer no judgement and only listen or... well, observe? Honestly, she wasn't sure how that whole mess came to be but her Sands ancestors would be proud of her … poise? Her ability to keep her thoughts to herself and outwardly offer no judgement and treat everyone equally. The lack of censure to expect also seemed to make others less prone to make nervous mistakes – or rather, they were still prone enough to those, she simply did not acerbate their nervousness.

Yes, her Sands ancestors would be proud though less so about her thawing inner sense of Pure-Blood superiority they had instilled in the family. The more she kept her calm, the more others seemed to wish to interact with her, the more her thoughts on that changed. They were all just people, and 'pure blood' did not make an ass any less of an ass. And her friend certainly was not less of a friend because she was 'only' a Half-Blood.

She would never be a Miss Popular and she had no intention of being one, but she got along well enough with people when they did approach her.

WC: 510

Ability 4: Sixth sense:

Reducio

Growing up with two sets of twins was very conducive to learning to keep an eye out for anything not fitting in your surroundings. Over time her ability to evade had truly evolved into a sixth sense for things amiss around her.

While she was only very rarely an active participant in her sibling’s prank wars, there was no one that escaped an property-wide prank war unscathed. Everyone ended up triggering some traps that were either intended for no one in particular or for someone else, nevermind the pranks intended for them. While she wouldn’t deny that it can be fun, and her siblings generally kept from away from humiliating pranks, it was still enough of a hazard that Milena had always tried to avoid it as much as possible. Not that she had been above some nice bout of retaliatory pranks in return.

Still, she had developed her spatial awareness in a sort of skill that warned her if something was not the way it was supposed to be. If furniture had (been) moved, for example, that was always a warning sign. If it felt like the path from door to door seemed longer, it probably meant that someone had done something to the door again – Fyodor had had a phase where he loved to cover the hallway floors in what wasn’t exactly glue: while the floor was slightly sticky-ish, one did not actually stick to it. But it did make walking over it minimally harder.

Or the time Ivan had somehow caught a whole bunch of Black-capped marmots … Fun fact: if your settee cushions are moving, do not sit down on it. So. Yeah. Lesson learned there. She would never again just consider that a trick of the light or something and ignore it without investigating. That had not been a fun evening. But at least Ivan had not gotten away unscathed either – especially not after their parents forced him to carry the – by then irate – marmots back outside. He’d ended up even more scratched up than she did in the end.

Or the time their parents had had enough of the shenanigans and finally decided to get involved and retaliated? If the floor looks like it has a ripple effect – do not trust it. It will lead to your doom – otherwise known as an involuntary bath in what seemed to be river water but probably wasn’t. Not a fun moment when the floor disappeared underneath your feet and drops you into a vat of water below. Still, at least their parents got all five of them at once with that trick.

Not all of her time growing up was as hazardous, there was a lot of down time where their family just enjoyed time together, too, but it certainly helped develop a certain sixth sense.

WC: 469

Status: approved
Abilities: approved