Matilda Nowell | First Year | Hufflepuff

Character name: Matilda Nowell
School Year or Adult Level: 1st
Character Statistics: Stamina 7 | Evasion 4 | Strength 3 | Wisdom 7 | Arcane Power 3 | Accuracy 6
Appearance:

Matilda stands at an even 5 feet, and as a result of her height and active lifestyle, has always been on the skinny side. Her skin is light but not pale, and she has the classic ginger look of red hair and freckles. Defying the English tradition, she has nearly perfect teeth that she proudly displays and religiously cleans.
She always had, for lack of a better term, an aura about her. There was just something about her that gave her an aura of beauty, yet danger. It's not so much a specific feature or look, it's just something that's always there.

Backstory:

Matilda's (Tilly to her friends and family) family has a complicated history with magic. She can trace her lineage all the way back to the late 15th century in England. Her ancestor, Roger Nowell, was a magistrate who presided over the trial of the Samlesbury Witches on 30, March 1612. Over the centuries, the Nowells grew into a prominent family in Blackburn, Lancashire, living on Kenyon Lane. Tilly is the first witch ever to be born in the Nowell line. Her mother, Anne, is from a traditional family in the English aristocracy. She was born and bred for one reason and that was to marry into the family or another noble line and be the lady of the house, raising the children and entertaining guests regularly. Her father, Richard, is the CEO of a large financial firm and as a result, has very little time to raise his children. He does his best to be involved in their lives, but his availability limits his influence due to his work
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Tilly has two older sisters, Lizzy (Elizabeth), and Maggie (Margaret). Both are considerably smarter than her. Maggie is currently in her second year at Oxford and Lizzy is preparing to embark on the same path once she finishes her private school. Despite not being on the same intellectual level as her sisters, Tilly has a close relationship with them. Her sisters have the inverse side of the same coin, where they have book smarts but limited street smarts, so they frequently seek her counsel on how to deal with things.

When she was preparing to attend Hogwarts, she was given a shocking bit of family history. Her grandmother on her mother's side had a one-night stand on her hen night. She did not know her grandfather's name; all that she had of him was a strand of hair her mother kept from the encounter. Her mother took it to an anthropologist and a doctor among others, but no one could tell her anything about it, just that it was different from a normal human's hair. Finally, a visit to the apothecary revealed the truth. Her grandfather was a veela.

First Instance of Magic:

Tilly has always been very competitive and was obsessed with baseball from a young age. She played recreationally as much as she could, and it was in competition that her gift first revealed itself. When she was eight, she was fielding in a very close game against her team's bitter rivals. As the ball left the bat she saw it was coming straight for her, but high enough she'd need a net to catch it. She immediately started to panic but refused to give up. She took a couple of steps back and flung herself up in the air in a manner that she was sure would be so far from the ball she'd look like a fool. To everyone's shock, she leapt five feet into the air and caught the ball, landing softly on the ground as if she were light as a feather. No one could explain it, and the consensus was that a sudden gust of wind must've lifted the skinny Tilly into the air.

Her parents, at the time, just thought it was a freak occurrence and were just happy for their daughter. Eventually, Professor (Galahad) Browne came to visit her family and explained to them that she was a witch. At first, they were afraid of the scandal associated with having a witch in the family, but they eventually came to peace with it, seeing how excited it made their daughter. All her life, she had felt inferior because of her sisters being so much smarter than her, but now she felt she'd finally found a way to distinguish herself.