Your Nickname: Sarah
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: Knox Greyfriar, Niobe Thursby, Figaro Sellaphix, Frank Sellaphix, Zora Roh, Nate Briggs, Xiomara Hooch, Persepolis Zephyr
Is this a Primary or Secondary Character?: Primary
Full Character Name: Branwen Tanith Strangely
Character Birthday & Age: October 1, 1942 (67)
City & Country of Birth: Stockholm, Sweden
Blood Purity: Halfblood
Alma Mater: Ravenclaw, Class of 1961
Job/Position: Professor of Herbology
Wand: 9.75 inches, oak, unicorn tail hair
Physical Description:
Branwen is a physically imposing witch, at nearly 6 feet tall and 14 stone. Her white hair exists in its most natural texture and she keeps it in locks, scarves or flowing around her head like a full moon. She has brown skin and large long ears. Her aged face is supple with smile lines. She's a witch who feels proud of her age and travels and makes no efforts to look younger than she is.
She is most often seen in traditional witch's clothing but makes no qualms about putting on muckboots, trousers and aprons to get down to work in a garden or tromp through the woods in search of mushrooms.
Branwen is deaf in one ear (her left) from an early accident with a Mandrake. Most people never learn this about her, but keen observers might notice a slight turn of her head or a her preference to sit on the left of a conversation.
Personality Description
A well-traveled, well-spoken old woman.
She never hesitates to give her opinion, which many consider to be extreme at times. She has no interest in hiding complexity or adult problems from children, and people find fault in that too.
Branwen keeps her private life private, but she's very vocal about all the things she cares about - Herbology, cultural diversity, politics, literature, travel...!
She works well on a team when the team suits her. Otherwise she does tend to be a bit of a bulldozer.
Branwen makes jokes often about the humanity of plans and growing things, and to hear her talk you might almost think she believes it!
History:
Maya and Branwen were born a year apart in 1940s in Stockholm, Sweden to British nationals. Her father (a muggle) often took seasonal agricultural work near there. The girls were born and the family moved back home to Under Warren, near Ottery St. Catchpole.
Her mother was a witch, so the family knew all about what would happen as the girls grew into their first decade. The letters came right on time, and the girls went to Hogwarts.
As a girl, she was very shy and obedient, even to the point of believing what society often told little girls of color - that there were things they could do well and things they could not. She grew used to people speaking for her, talking over her, choosing for her. There weren't very many people who looked like her in her village or at Hogwarts at the time - it wasn't easy to see the truth. That she and Maya were exceptional.
But that changed sometime around her 5th year in Hogwarts, when she and Maya decided they'd had enough. They'd been reading. They'd been writing to each other. They'd been listening to the WWN. They became the better forms of themselves and bolstered each other up as they took on the lives they were meant for.
Maya left Hogwarts in 1966 and helped establish one of the first private werewolf safe houses in Britain. Branwen left Hogwarst the year after and pursued her love for Herbology in Rio de Janeiro.
And after that, it was Kinshasa. And after that, Atlanta. Then Wellington, Seoul, and Amsterdam.
She married twice and divorced twice, and had no children. To know her intimately is to experience a sort of coldness - a lack of self-giving in that kind of way.
During her travels, she contributed to research in the powers of magical fungi, and Flora Magika published her photography each quarter.
Decades later, she is considered a leading British Herbologist.
Describe your job duties and how you go about them:
As the Professor of Herbology, Madam Strangely is responsible for guiding students of all ages through a solid foundation of theoretical and practical Herbology. As she sees it, Hogwarts should prepare students in a cross-disciplinary way making sure students understand how Herbology connects to other disciplines.
Elaborate on your expertise in your field:
She has nearly 4 decades of academic and practical experience in Herbology. Her only educational experience so far has been in giving lectures to adults and writing, so teaching children will be mostly new to her.
(She has supervise apprentices before, and participated in community garden efforts in Atlanta.)
Sum up your character in one paragraph:
Branwen is a mighty woman to see, and her voice carries. She speaks her mind, she tends to plants, she seeks to uncover mysteries in the good earth.
Branwen Tanith Strangely: Herbologist