Rosamund Verney

Profile

Full Name: Rosamund Aveline Verney
Status: Pure-blood
Age: 11
Birthday: 16 Nov 2014
Nationality: English
Wand: 34,4 cm aspen wood and unicorn hair
Patronus: to be determined
School Year or Adult Level: 1st Year Ravenclaw
Character Special Race/Talent: n/a

Physical Description:

She has thick, dark, long, wavy hair that is always neatly styled, fair skin with a scattering of faint freckles across her small straight nose and rosy cheeks, and light blue eyes. She is small and slender with the slightly awkward proportions of someone on the verge of a growth spurt.

Mental Description:

She is an introvert; though having been raised in an old, rich pureblood family, she is trained to hold polite conversations well. Most of her reactions to stimulus is processed internally first, causing her to have a mostly flat affect while having a rich internal world. She's also incredibly curious, has the propensity to act and think independently, and prides herself for being logical rather than emotional.

Character Backstory:

Rosamund is one of the last heirs of a small pureblood family with diminishing members. As the only child of her parents, she was taught at a very young age that the family name and lineage is given utmost priority, and that she is expected to someday marry well (to a respectable pureblood of her choice---it was heavily implied) and carry on the family Legacy. Thus, she grew up with a private governess that taught her proper etiquette and imposed strict social calendars with a heavily curated pool of peers.

A life neatly laid out like this is a privilege to many. But, the problem with Rosamund is that she is a dreamer: She longs to someday create new spells and write new theories of magic just like the authors of the books in her family's library. Or maybe she'd discover long lost mythical creatures instead like Newt Scamander, who knows? She may be too young to really understand what her family is expected of her, but she does know that when her mother had her, she had to stay home manage the estate. She can't create new spells or discover new creatures if she stays home! Besides, managing the family accounts is boring no matter what her mother says.

She surmised that in order to avoid the future that she sees fast approaching, she has to create a proper, fool-proof Plan:

1. Gather information. Find out how her cousins and peers are handling such, if they are. Perhaps find out why her family is obsessed with their Legacy, and then work backwards from there.
2. Gather skills. If mother and father are adamant about this, offer alternate modes of what the family Legacy would look like (or what it even means). Perhaps if she develops a unique skillset and she lands a lucrative work after she graduates, she can offer either the prestige of their family name through her or the wealth that comes with it.

And thus began a secret, years-long personal campaign, with Rosamund silently skirting the limits of her freedom, learned to sneak around, voluntarily created connections with her peers to gain information (which her mother ironically approves if it makes her highly introverted daughter willingly talk and spend time with prospective future partners), and excitedly looked forward to her admission to Hogwarts as the first step of her Grand Plan!

Astronomy Background:

Rosamund was 6 years old when she saw her first meteor shower outside her bedroom window. The Geminids peaked in the night of December 14 that year (2020) with a record peak rate of about 150 meteors per hour. With the skies dark enough because the moon was on the literal other side of earth, it was the best meteor shower that she had ever seen in her life.

Since that night, she scoured her family library and pestered her governess for anything and everything she could find about meteors, stars and other celestial bodies. She'd stay up all night tracing constellations on the parapets. She'd wake up before dawn because that's generally the best time to watch meteor showers (something about the earth's rotation at that time of the night putting us in the leading edge of the planet's orbit).

Things however took a very interesting turn when Rosamund met Perry (nickname) at one of her mother's afternoon tea parties when she was 8 years old.

Perry's family first had contacts with her family thru the family antique auction business that Rosamund's father runs. The very first time that both of their families sat to hammer out the details, her mother hosted an afternoon tea for his family at their estate.

As in elite pureblood social circles like this, especially when precluded by business, children were expected to be in their best behavior, mingle and form connections with each other, and largely stay out of the adults' way.

Rosamund and Perry instantly hit it off. Both of their proclivity to follow the metaphorical rabbit hole down to the bottom of the abyss called to each other like kin. It wasn't very long before they discovered their shared love of Astronomy, and things just accelerated from there.

Perry's older cousin Orion happens to be working as a specialist in charms and enchantments tied to Celestial timing, i.e. magical timekeeping, brewing potions that need precise astronomical timing, etc., which logically meant that Perry has an accessible fountain of knowledge in a form of his cousin and his cousin's numerous books and almanacs about Astronomy.

After Perry and his family went back to America, he and Rosamund would start writing to each other, sharing information and comparing notes at first, with Perry's cousin Orion as their unwitting fact checker and theory soundboard, which then escalated fast when Perry started lending her Astronomy books and almanacs that he playfully called "smuggling" over owl post.

First Instance of Magic:

When she was 6 years old during a social call where her family was hosting another, she accidentally exploded her teacup when a conversation she was silently following heavily implied that a virtue she upholds was seen negatively when it was shown by another.

She values curiosity and cleverness, which her family celebrates, but it was seen as arrogance when it was shown by a half-blood boy here. The disparity hurt her brain. When she had to physically strain to keep still and stay quiet in the social setting (because proper witches only talk when spoken to), her magic lashed out and exploded the teacup that she'd been holding on to for dear life, leaving her with tea all over her neatly pressed dress robes and her mother scolding her in private anyway.

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