sometimes she hides herself away just to see if she is worth looking for

character basics

anabel felix gray

Reducio

her name is nothing more than the spanish version of the common name annabelle, meaning 'loveable,' though perhaps she is not. she will make it a strong name. she is no annabel lee. she will not be loved. she will not die so easily.

felix. lucky. this is a thing that has been said to her many times- that she is a lucky, lucky child. she thinks not. her father picked out her middle name, choosing against a feminine version. he had a twinkle in his eye.

she took her mother's last name. it is neither ornate nor elegant. there is nothing gray about her, besides her aesthetic, but that's good enough for her.

slytherin
born 4/15/11
34,2 cm hornbeam wood and dragon heartstring

Reducio

hornbeam is for the ambitious bordering on obsessed, and there are few more determined to make something of themselves than anabel. she sticks to a strict code of her own rules, the only ones she feels truly obligated to follow, and her wand has adapted to this readily. its core makes it powerful, quick to learn, and temperamental. with such a wand in her hand, she stands a chance at someday being something remarkable.

first year
human
female
asexual

anabel in-depth

appearance:

Reducio

anabel stands just a little tall for her age and is just a little heavy for her height, though she doesn't really look like it. she doesn't mind, in fact, she'd rather not look like her wrists could be snapped with ease. she's been running since she was even younger and is built like an endurance athlete, already starting to put some muscle on her frame.

her face still looks very young and childlike, but many people are surprised by her age anyway simply because of the way she speaks and carries herself. her skin used to be tan from the mediterranean sun, but since her move to london it's gotten paler. she has a few freckles, more in the summer.

her eyes are dark and vaguely green, muddled with brown. most people don't notice them until they look very closely, but occasionally she'll wear a certain outfit and the light will hit them just right and they won't look half terrible. occasionally.

she hates the way her hair looks for months after it's been cut- so freakishly straight across. she puts it in a ponytail and it just... looks wrong. for that reason and that reason alone, she only gets it trimmed when her split ends are out of control. this has resulted in it growing long enough to fall to the small of her back. it's extremely thick and even the slightest wind will turn it into a tangled mess, so it's almost always back in a long, loose braid. the ends have been dip-dyed gold since she was seven, contrasting nicely with the brown so dark it sometimes looks black.

when she wears muggle clothing she prefers a loose, soft t-shirt tucked into jeans or jean shorts. she is almost always wearing some piece of jewelry (she loves giant dangling earrings) and it gives her a little boost of confidence. she always has a hair tie on her wrist. she wears wire-rimmed glasses when her headaches get bad. she paints her nails but has to redo them every few days since she almost immediately picks it all off. the day she turns eighteen she wants a tattoo, but she doesn't know what yet.

lineage:

Reducio

the gray line is a tangled mess of a dozen european nationalities, magic fading in and out of the picture. those that did have it usually did their best to ignore it, burying it so deep that when it inevitably resurfaced a few generations later, the wizarding world was unheard of.

the espositos, on the other hand, are a line of almost pure italian wizardry. they can trace their roots at hogwarts back centuries, beginning with a little orphan boy who was a member of one of the very first graduating classes. since then, they've had a famous witch or wizard here or there but mostly keep to themselves, quietly prospering. they are not pureblood, intersecting with muggles once in a while.

childhood:

Reducio

anabel spent her first four years on the outskirts of flagstaff, arizona, playing in the shadow of the mountains. she was raised by only her mother, though her father came from time to time in an attempt to be part of her life, and she adored him. the memories she does have from the united states are fuzzy and distorted but full of innocence and potential.

one of her father's visits resulted in silas, her younger brother. just a few months after his birth, her mother's mental health spiraled rapidly out of control and the two kids ended up in the care of their paternal grandmother in italy. they grew up in a sunny village along the sea, the ideal idyllic childhood home. the three of them were a tight-knit group, and the other two watched on as anabel grew to become an odd and quiet person. she never befriended any of the few girls her age who lived nearby. instead, she would spend hours inside her bedroom reading and writing. when she did venture outside, it was to climb a tree to worrying heights and watch the sun set and stars come out, thoughts racing all the while. her grandmother fed her recklessness and obsessive behavior but also her endless curiosity and thoughtfulness. privately, she pondered the girl's potential for magic.

london:

Reducio

when anabel was ten, her mother reached out for the first time in six years, popping the bubble of peace that had been formed across the ocean. anabel didn't even know the woman, but she had made a full recovery, was moving to london, and wanted both of them to come live with her. this was where the dark side of her personality, reckless, reclusive, and calculating, exploded into bitterness and anxiety. she argued with her mother constantly, finding something wrong with practically every word that came out of her mouth. at night she curled into a ball and tried not to cry.

anabel very well may have performed little acts of magic in the past- her pencils never rolled off her desk and the pages of her books never got bent. however, her first true instance of accidental magic happened in the midst of a screaming match with her mother. her father was in the room over, trying to tune it out, but he came running when he heard a crash. the woman had made the mistake of taking a step toward silas, who was cowering in the corner, and anabel sent her stumbling backward into a table.

soon after, her father revealed that he was a wizard and that her grandmother was a witch. ever since her letter from hogwarts was delivered, he's been around even more to help her navigate this strange new dimension.

personality:

Reducio

personality has already been touched on a fair bit, but here it is in depth.

anabel has always been very mature for her age, and nobody is sure why. it might be because she felt responsible for silas at at such a young age, or it may simply be the way she is. she's creative and a quick learner. she's also extremely curious and will become obsessed with a topic, researching it in depth and only stopping when her attention is stolen by something else. late nights are a norm. she prides herself on her academic abilities as well as general problem-solving. she doesn't do well in areas that require immense attention to detail, as she prefers to work fast, and she absorbs next to no information presented audibly unless she takes notes.

her core value is honesty above all other things. another one of her viewpoints is that a person should live as desperately as they can, as in like every breath could be their last. she wants to see and do everything she can. this results in a lot of risk-taking behavior.

she spends a great deal of time just sitting, spaced out and thinking. this results in an unusual depth of thought and philosophic tendencies but makes it hard for her to step outside her own head and interact with the world. anabel projects a very confident persona but struggles with anxiety, overthinking, and sometimes intense self-loathing.

when she first learned about the houses, she assumed she would be a ravenclaw, but after a little bit more research she decided she would probably end up in slytherin instead. she has an intense desire to make her mark on the world, to be remembered for something, and she's always been aware of the fact that she would sacrifice relationships for some of her goals. add this to her pessimism and general fascination with darkness, and she seems to fit right in.

anabel gets extremely anxious around people, especially in large group settings, and goes out of her way to avoid as much interaction as possible. she fidgets a lot but it is subtle, and the way she stays quiet and shrinks in on herself makes it so that many people are completely unaware of her existence. when she does interact, she uses aggressive sarcasm and even flirting as a sort of defense mechanism to subconsciously push people away. she does not conceal a single thought she has- blunt, brutally honest, sometimes downright mean.

the rare person who fights tooth and nail to be her friend will eventually find themselves a humorous, chaotic, witty, kind, helpful, and fiercely loyal companion who they couldn't get rid of if they tried. not many people get to see this side of her, but perhaps it is who she really is underneath it all.

i will be wild, difficult to find, and impossible to forget.
-erin van vuren

a story.

CHAPTER ONE -

CHAPTER TWO -

relationships

mother:	Reducio anger was better than tears, better than grief, better than guilt. evelyn gray grew up a second-generation immigrant in phoenix. arizona. her childhood was, for the most part, happy and typical. however, her mother lost a battle with depression while evelyn was in college and her father followed not long after. she was in grad school when she met dominik in a park and went home with him. their relationship was only supposed to last a night, but when she ended up with anabel it became clear that she would be seeing him more often. just weeks after the birth of silas, another accident, she began to spiral into anxiety and depression. not long after, she sent her kid's to live with dominik's mom in italy. when she asked them to move with her to london six years later, it was the first time she'd talked to them since then. anabel was furious at her life being disrupted like this for someone who obviously didn't care about her, who had the audacity to materialize after she'd abandoned them and rip them away from everything they'd ever known. she refused to build any sort of mother-daughter relationship, instead making her hatred obvious in violent screaming matches over anything and everything the elder dared to say.
father:	Reducio ...I do not have time for things that have no soul. -charles bukowski anabel absolutely adores dominik esposito. he's young and dark and has an air of adventure and danger. he was always tense around evelyn, but he's a doting father. he visited almost once a month (they always wondered at how he was able to travel like that) and never arrived without a joke, a riddle, and a gift. he'd was a ravenclaw at hogwarts before he graduated and went to muggle college to become an environmental scientist renowned in his field, though he never reveals his secrets. he does tend to avoid conflict, and thus never revealed that he was a wizard until magic was knocking on their doorstep. in anabel's perfect world, he would take her and her brother back to italy and life in their house with them, permanently.
grandmother:	Reducio sometimes i think if nobody spoke to me, i'd never speak again. -alice oseman nobody knows grandma esposito's name. nobody. it's just another part of her mystery. she's a cynical but loving woman who was all too happy to have more kids to raise after dominik, her only child, left the nest. her and her husband went their separate ways long ago, and it was a very lonely existence in her little house in her little town by the sea, with no company but her potions in the living room. after anabel and silas moved in she took her cauldron and ingredients to the study, still working on projects daily but also devoting a great portion of her time toward trying to bring out anabel's true potential- or at least to get her to say more than five words. who knows how the girl would have turned out without her efforts. she's a powerful witch, especially in the subtle art and science of potion-making, but she has a few more abilities up her sleeve as well...
brother:	Reducio i am frightened and doubtful, and everyone who touches me must suffer. -martha gelhorn one of anabel's greatest fears is that she will ruin her younger brother, silas. she tends to be a bit melodramatic and she's convinced that she's tainted in darkness and will eventually bring him harm. he really likes london, especially all the old buildings. he really wants to get to know mama, but his sis says that she's not to be trusted, so he avoids her. there is no one that anabel loves more than silas. he is her entire world, has been since she was four and she felt in charge of taking care of him. he's a sweet, silly, and social boy who practically idolizes his sister, knowing that she will always protect him. there's plenty of truth to his sentiment. anabel's most intense instance of accidental magic occurred when she thought he was in danger.
self:	Reducio to whom do i owe the biggest apology? no one's been crueler than i've been to me. -alanis morissette she holds herself to an impossibly high standard and is painfully aware of all of her flaws. in her mind, she will never be enough, and she will never be good at anything that matters. she's pretty good at burying these feelings and most days feels genuinely confident in herself, but there are also days when the self-loathing hits her like a punch in the stomach. anabel strives to be inspirational and untouchable. she just wishes this didn't result in her coming across as so sharp and cold.

soulmates:	Reducio i can't explain what i mean. and even if i could, i'm not sure i'd feel like it. -j.d. salinger
friends:	Reducio i wonder which will get you killed faster- your loyalty or your stubbornness?
enemies:	Reducio (i) did not mean to be cruel. that does not mean (i) was kind.
acquantinces:	Reducio i think i am a better ghost than i am a human being.
other:	Reducio i had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion. -jack kerouac