Rhea Doetail ❆ Slytherin ❆ First Year

Rhea was born into the old pureblood family of the Doetails. Her family’s estate is known for its rotten orchards, hidden in a vast labyrinth of gardens where her grandfather, a well known and respected Auror, taught her to tend to the venomous plants and helped her learn an important lesson - any danger can be handled, as long at it is carefully observed and understood. His death when she was six severed her last connection to true warmth and understanding. Her parents—an uninterested father concerned only with political clout and a cold mother overly insistent on Occlumency drills—aimed to raise a weapon, not a daughter. By eleven, she’d enclosed herself in a veil of ice, burying deep any traces of vulnerability and relying solely on herself.

Rhea knows what she wants, and she is willing to bend the rules to get it. The loss of her grandfather instilled a need to regain control over life, a ruthless place full of darkness as she saw it now; to be a player, not prey. She finds it hard to connect with people, resorting almost solely to practical interactions related to studies and chores, strategically using them to appear social. She still does form strong bonds, even if one-sided, with those she deems “hers” - an old house elf of the name Mossey, and a big noble tomcat living in the mansion who somehow reminds her of her grandfather. She is ready to confront anyone who might harm them through calculated, jarringly cold directness.

All in all, she is a girl who uses the walls she's built around herself as a shield, guarding herself against hurt and control, while not allowing anyone to hold her back from achieving her dreams. Her ambition to become a skilled Auror like her grandfather one day isn’t for the simple joy of achievement, but much more to build a world where less people will suffer the loss she did. And to carry on his legacy.

At age seven, while exploring her family’s vast acres of orchards, Rhea came across a venomous Snargaluff pod in one of the greenhouses that had broken free of its restraints. Out of nowhere, it lunged at her favourite tomcat who had decided to accompany her for a walk that day. Her heart leaped and without thinking, she extended her arm in the way, hoping to protect her pet even if she got hurt herself. The Snargaluff’s vines stiffened mid-air just inches from her skin almost as if time had stopped; small crystals of frost quickly spread all over them, freezing the vines in place like icy tentacles. The tomcat (Rhea never thought to come up with a name for him. It just felt right to call him Tomcat) hissed and fled, never the wiser as to what had startled him. Needless to say, her parents saw this as a great reason to organise an official dinner and formally celebrate their daughter's first display of magic. Rhea received a generous pat from her father and a solemn nod from her mother.




The Doetails have used their estate's orchards to nurture poisonous plants and animals for centuries. These would feed on the fruits falling from the old trees of the orchards and on the animals drawn by the eerie quiet. Then, the Doetail family would collect the vast variety of poison, using it to brew potions and supply ingredients for various apothecary shops around the wizarding world. The shade provided by the gardens and the scent of dark, fertile soil proved to be the exact thing most toxic magical creatures felt drawn to, but it wasn't the sole thing calling to them.

With her strawberry-blonde hair and pale green eyes, Rhea is a splitting image of Amarantha Doetail, her 5th great-grandmother. Perhaps one of the few Parselmouths known for her contributions to society, the pureblood witch had healed many people during times of plague with the potions she prepared from snakes' venom. Over the next generation however, her descendants felt forced to reduce her memory to a mere potions master due to the ill fame surrounding those speaking the language. Furthermore, the magical talent lay dormant for generations until it resurfaced in Rhea. The only memories pointing at the truth remained hidden in the mansion, a secret entrusted to the care of the oldest house elf Mossey. Some hints can still be noticed in the tapestries adoring the mansion's main hall, if one had an observant eye and a questioning mind: faded like ghosts, curling around the golden frame of Amarantha's portrait, intertwine three pale serpents - once dark green, now mostly turned greyish with the wear of time. Their faces are all turned to her, attentive and as if replying themselves, small tongues flicked out. The other hint is to be found in the golden antler medallion Amarantha possessed, which now rests around Rhea's neck six generations later - a barely noticeable serpent can be seen, coiled around the antlers.

Rhea's very first words in Parseltongue were uttered before her first instance of wandless magic. Ironically, it happened the same day she was forever deprived of her only true friend that she discovered a means to forge a lifelong connection with new ones. Six years old, kneeling down in front of her grandfather's grave, she dug her fingers into the rocky, dark clots of soil until her nails split. Unannounced, a viper slithered over and flicked its forked tongue, tasting her blood. Rhea didn't move as she watched it through the silent mist of tears in her eyes. It pressed its cool head against her palm, and she heard a faint voice, "You are alone. So am I." Without thinking, she hissed back quietly, "Don't go." The viper seemed to understand, because it didn't move for a long beat. Then, it coiled around her wrist like a living bracelet and fell asleep.

Ever since that day, Rhea found some kind of solace in the company of the cool, secretive beasts. They would sense her presence as she passed by the stone walls of the mansion or the small creek that winds around it, and would peek their heads out of their hiding spots even just to glance at her. Some would talk, occasionally, if she stopped by to watch them back herself. Others would like to slither up her arm when she reached out, especially in the autumn when the days got cooler and the heat of her skin provided some much appreciated warmth. Rhea wondered if she was like a sun to them, by the way they sought her out more as the days got cloudy and the sky heavy with the scent of coming rain. She felt like they were her sun too, sometimes. Making her days somehow warmer and less lonely, when she felt most cold.