Your Nickname: Maddy
Have you read and do you agree to the Code of Conduct?: Yes
Are you over thirteen? Yes
How did you find us and decide to write with us? Other
If you have written other characters here: Yes
If Yes, list them all: Aberdeen Spencer, Pax Wintergreen, Luke Adani, Étienne Miroux, Yolanda Valdaine, Poppy Feng (Quidditch secondary)
Is this a Primary or Secondary Character?: Primary

Full Character Name: Samantha Charlene 'Sam' Travers
Character Birthday & Age: 3rd August, 1992, age 17
City & Country of Birth: Derby, England
Pureblood, Halfblood or Muggleborn: Pureblood
House & Year: Slytherin seventh-year

Wand: Dragon heartstring and spruce, 9˝ inches, inflexible

Physical Description:

Despite being of slightly less than average height, Sam manages to achieve a dominating physical presence. Though she tends to keep her hands stuffed in her pockets or her arms folded, she doesn't come across as introverted at all due to the confident way she carries herself. Chest forward, chin out, she'll cock her head to one side and raise her expressive eyebrows in a thoroughly unimpressed but unspoken, 'What are you looking at?'

Since her father has expressed a wish for Sam to use make-up to soften her angular features, she goes to the other extreme, preferring heavy shadow and liner to make her piercing green eyes pop. Sam likes everything about her to stand out. She'll either fluff out or scrape back her shoulder-length, sandy-coloured hair, and when out of school uniform she'll don tight jeans and low-cut tops to show off her generous curves. Add this to her broad Derby accent, and some people have called her a chav for the way she looks. Fortunately she doesn't give a damn what they think.

Personality Description:

The whole 'not giving a damn what people think' attitude does not bar Sam from standing up for herself. If you badmouth her to her face, you will find yourself on the end of a sharp tongue-lashing or a well-placed hex. If you badmouth her behind her back? If she finds out, you'd best watch yours.

Having been brought into the world be two people who clearly don't love each other, Sam doesn't have the best example of what loving relationships are. The only person she ever properly cared about growing up was her big brother Jack, and now she's not even sure where he is or what's happened to him. It leaves a hollow kind of vulnerability there deep beneath her layers of apathy and contempt, not that she'd ever let anyone know that.

In her parents' presence, Sam behaves herself, to some extent, knowing that as much disdain as she has for them, she depends on them for her current lifestyle. But there's no hiding the attitude that she's developed over the years, even from authority figures. Most of the teachers at Hogwarts know by now that Sam is something of a problem student; bright, but loath to apply herself. Streetwise, but still immature.

With her future now looming closer than ever, Sam preoccupies herself with parties, alcohol, cigarettes, and even some less-than-savoury potions. Basically, anything that will eventually make life outside of Hogwarts harder to face. But apparently for Sam, whittling her potential away is preferable to facing up to the self-destructive path she's currently on.

History:

The marriage of purebloods Yorick Travers and Yvonne Fontaine was not a happy one. They didn't even have a love-hate relationship, unless you counted the fact that they seemed to love to hate one another. Yvonne had flagrant trysts with other men, to the point where Yorick doubted the paternity of their firstborn child, Jonathan. Because there was less doubt when their daughter Samantha was born two years later, she was treated as the favourite from the get-go. As far as Yorick was concerned, Samantha was his heir, and Jack, whom he became more and more convinced was impure, was good for nothing but manual labour, little better than the family's house elf.

Samantha realised early on that while her parents favoured her, they didn't seem to care very much for her. They spent money on her, but never time. It was always Jack who properly looked after her. Jack who would clean up and bandage her knees when she fell. Jack who would ward off the monsters under the bed. Jack who would tell her stories and give her a hug at bedtime. Yorick and Yvonne didn't do hugs. They didn't do affection at all.

By the time Samantha was seven and Jack was nine, the outcome of the Second Wizarding War meant that their branch of the Travers family had much less money to throw around. Gone were the nice big house and the family house elf. Now Jack and Samantha had to contend with a smaller, lower class and muggle-neighbouring property, and a new decision made by Yorick under the influence of his older brother Alaric. Jack was forbidden from attending Hogwarts. What's more, the Traverses put about word that he had died. He was kept hidden from anyone from wizarding society, and treated more like a servant than ever. Samantha learned to go along with it. She didn't like it, but she had no idea what to do about it. She would grow up to resent this about herself.

Living in a muggle neighbourhood proved challenging at first. Believing her parents' purist teachings, Samantha turned her nose up at the other kids living nearby, and became surprised when they took offense at this. This in turn became indignation when they started to pick on her as a result. But when things turned physical, fortunately, Jack was always there to protect her. Samantha never felt scared when Jack was with her. She always believed her brother could never lose a fight, and didn't even care that he barely used magic. His doggedness in fighting off Samantha's would-be attackers even ended up winning over some of the neighbourhood kids, and Jack and Sam eventually found themselves integrated into the gang.

Before Sam could get into the somewhat less-than-legal activities of Jack's new friends, her Hogwarts letter arrived. It was bittersweet; getting away from their ghastly home, but at the same time leaving her brother behind. But with a promise to write everyday, Sam was gone. Jack had not been allowed to accompany her to the station.

Sam was a bit lost when she started school. It helped being Sorted into Slytherin; there were other kids there with pureblood names that she'd heard of. But as time went on she found that she cared less what stock her schoolmates came from, and more if they were hardy like her brother. She gravitated towards tougher kids, those who weren't afraid to push their weight around. Trouble was, some of them were too eager to assert themselves, and more than once Sam found herself sitting in a teacher's office with a group of friends being lectured about bullying.

During the summer after Sam's first year, she was violently shaken out of her complacence. She didn't know the specifics. She only knew that her father owed money to a werewolf, and the werewolf had come to collect. And with Yorick unable to pay this man back with money, he'd intended to collect her. Desperate to safeguard his heir, Yorick offered Jack instead. And Jack, desperate to protect his little sister, had gone. Sam had wailed her protests, but in vain. She hadn't slept that night, but cried into her pillow for hours.

Had she fallen asleep, she wouldn't have heard the door open and close, wouldn't have crept out onto the landing and peered downstairs to see her brother, beaten and bruised, barely alive. Some days Sam's not sure if she really saw Jack that night, or if it was a dream. She kept asking her parents what had happened to him, but Yvonne was oddly silent on the matter, and Yorick just insisted that 'he was gone', nothing more. Pleas to see Jack fell on deaf ears, and it got to the point where Sam could only hope that her big brother was alive and well.

Sam became more problematic after that. She was distant from her friends and parents, distracted from her schoolwork. She was irritable, and started to manifest a talent in curses and hexes that more often than not landed her in detention. And she couldn't even say why. After all, her brother was supposed to have died years ago.

Finally, through fourth and fifth year, she started pulling herself together. The older kids she had hung out with as a youngster started to graduate, and younger ones arrived. Sam still snapped at them if they annoyed her, but she realised how disappointed Jack would be if she was hurting little kids who couldn't defend themselves, and reserved her hexes strictly for those her own age or older. She put some effort into her studies in time to pass her OWLS (well, most of them). Sam was still a loudmouth and a coaster, but her desire to do well by her brother kept her from slipping entirely into delinquency.

Still, Sam had to find some form of release. She went to parties. She got drunk. When she was sixteen, she started smoking. A decent potioneer, she started experimenting with some questionable recipes. She had warnings to pull her act together, of course, especially when she reached her final year at Hogwarts. But with a less-than-stellar academic record behind her and a life of pureblood society ahead, Sam found herself with little motivation.

Classes:

Core Classes Charms Defense Against the Dark Arts Potions Transfiguration

Electives Study of Ancient Runes

How Do You Fit Into Your House?:

The Sorting Hat was at a bit of a loss when it came to Sam. Bravery didn't much factor into her personality because with her brother around she was never afraid. She was clever enough, but didn't prize learning nor possess 'wit beyond measure'. And though she had a sense of loyalty when it came to her brother, she was rather lacking when it came to hard work and fair-mindedness. In the end she was placed in Slytherin because she had a degree of cunning (or at least the ability to get what she wanted) and, at least when she was young, ambition enough to leave the life of her parents behind.

Writing Sample:
See Aberdeen Spencer or Pax Wintergreen.

Sum up your character in one paragraph:

Sam is loud, brash, and blunt. Smart but not conscientious, she gets by in school but is known to be trouble. One look at her and you might assume she has no depth, but buried deep beneath the surface is a concern for her big brother, and a fervent hope that he is all right. She parties, drinks and smokes like there's no tomorrow, and will cuss you out if you call her out on it. Some people assume Sam acts the way she does because she figures it'll all work out okay. In fact, she acts the way she does because she has no idea what will happen next.