Your Nickname: Bri
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? Friend
If you have written other characters here: Yes
If Yes, list them all: Zia Piselli, Jai Patil
Is this a Primary or Secondary Character?: Primary

Full Character Name: Clarissa Kelly McByrne "Claire"
Character Birthday & Age: 22; April 1, 1987
City & Country of Birth: Hillsborough, Ireland
Blood Purity: Halfblood
Alma Mater: Hogwarts
Job/Position: Manager of Zonko's; Inventor

Wand: 9 & 1/3 pliable dogwood with a bent shaft and dragon heartstring core (that her mother obtained).


Physical Description:
Claire’s oblong face is rarely seen without a smile, and her brown eyes usually glisten with a mischievous spark. because she’s up to something. She has brown hair that is usually a frizzy mess or a stringy flat wig of gross, but occasionally it does looks quite good. It usually does this of its own volition, of course, because Claire doesn’t bother with her hair unless it’s throwing it up into a ponytail. The same goes for makeup and clothes: Claire doesn’t dress to be fashionable -- she definitely goes for comfort over style. However, she does respect the notion of dressing fancily, and on those occasions she’s still more likely to wear something that makes her smile or laugh than something that would actually make her look sexy. If she’s wearing makeup, it’s probably because she’s testing a new product in her prank makeup line, Fake-Up. Regardless, she still manages to look pretty cute. She has appeal in her curvy hips, big smile, and an easy-going aura. Plus, even if she’s wearing a dress with kittens on it, her tattoos make her look pretty edgy- at least she thinks so. Even if they’re of illustrations from children’s books. If she feels she needs to look extra edgy, she’ll add some thick eyeliner.

Personality Description:
Clarissa “Claire” McByrne loves to pull pranks. She is not malicious, though -- she does it because she loves to make people laugh. Along with her affinity for pranks comes a snapping wit and sharpness. Along with her wit comes a special talent for coming up with puns and limericks, which is handy when naming her inventions. Claire puts the “irk” in “quirky” sometimes, though. As in, sometimes she is so random and bizarre that she totally bewilders the average-minded person. Luckily, Claire isn’t a very awkward person; instead, she tends to be the person who ends the awkward moment by cracking a joke or pointing it out. In general, she’s pretty charismatic since she’s so easy-going. She doesn’t really care what people think, and she isn’t very judgmental. This brings her a lot of confidence that others don’t have. People screw up sometimes -- she gets that and is easily forgiving of it.

Consequently, Claire tends to befriend some serious weirdos and really, super hates thinking about anything bad. Anything weird or even downright ugly tends to charm Claire, and she’s more likely to tell one of her odd pets what’s upsetting her than an actual friend (and even the pets are a risk -- some of them can understand, she knows it). Claire prefers not to open up and talk about what’s really bothering her almost ever. In this sense, she can be especially childish and stubborn. As unusual as her gloomy moods sare, when they come, Claire can’t do anything to cheer herself up and just wants to be by herself. These moods, though, are pretty rare. When it comes to being serious, Claire mostly feels uncomfortable and usually ends up making inappropriate jokes or jokes at inappropriate times. She likes everything to be relaxed and tends to be good under pressure because she doesn’t leap to the worst case scenario right away and is able to think pretty clearly.

Her creativity, and cleverness help her out quite a bit in her chosen field. When it comes to her inventions, Claire designs them in every aspect from start to finish, from engineering to product design. She is quite artistic and in addition to designing her inventions, Claire also likes to draw and doodle her own comics. She has a wild imagination to boot.

Claire has a rough and tumble, free spirit and is very young at heart. She likes to be active, although she is quite a spastic tomboy. Though she is great with children, Claire cannot imagine herself ever having her own (yet?). Besides, she can’t even identify herself romantically. She’s probably bisexual, but gets uneasy answering questions trying to define or label it. Claire likes people, and she’ll flirt with the ones she’s romantically interested in. She’s surprisingly quite good at flirting, but in a way acts kind of like a dude. Her sense of humor tends to assist her in this area.

When it comes to pranks, Claire isn’t malicious at all. She does it in good spirit, and always hopes that the prankee will see it that way and get a laugh out of the situation, in the end. She can appreciate a prank well done. It’s not very easy to make her mad, but she doesn’t stand for bullies or phonies. Much of the time, they end up as the butt of her pranks. Claire is a huge procrastinator and will slack off of responsibilities in pursuit of a small idea or to avoid doing something she doesn’t want to do. She loves muggle inventions and thinks many of them are pretty brilliant, even using some herself in lieu of magic. Claire is easily distracted and kind of lazy, and likes to indulge in smoking and drinking maybe a little too often.


History:
Liam McByrne figured out he was a squib at a young age when two of his brothers displayed magical abilities very early on and he did not. He decided to skip out on magical schooling and instead dedicated himself to studies in the muggle world, obtaining a degree in engineering from a prestigious school in Ireland. Sinead Monaghan’s parents traveled all around the world studying different magical creatures, occasionally bringing her along -- thus inspiring her passion for learning things about mythical beasts. She possessed a particular talent for being able to calm animals (and people), which helped launch a career as a successful dragon trainer.

Before any of this, though, Liam and Sinead were best childhood friends who spent every moment they could together, beginning when they were still in diapers. When Sinead wasn’t off travelling with her parents, she and Liam would try to catch magical creatures on their own (but of course, mainly caught harmless animals). Sinead in particular showed a passion for finding and playing with the beasts, but Liam was more interested in making the contraptions used to capture the animals and the studying of the animal after. It wasn’t until they were 25 that they realized that they were in love (many, many, MANY years after everyone else in their lives did). They married six months after their first kiss. Not too long after that, they gave birth to their first child, a baby girl named Nora.

Sinead and Liam had their jobs in dragon training and engineering, respectively, and were doing very well for themselves. They were really raking in the galleons, and it only cost Sinead a few minor burns and Liam a few math equations to get it. A few years after Nora was born, they happily brought four more children into the world in quick succession: Kian, Finn, Claire, and Sean.

Claire was born, rather fittingly, on April 1, 1987. By the time Claire was old enough to be consciously aware of the world, her older sister Nora was into all things girly. She didn’t want to spend any time with her stupid little sister and instead held tea parties with her stuffed animals. Claire believed she was better company than a bunch of stuffed toys and so she ran around with her brothers instead. What they were doing was far more interesting: sports, adventures, and of course, pulling pranks.

When Claire was 8 years old, Sinead went to work as if it was a regular day, but did not return home. An accident had occurred with a dragon who everyone had seriously underestimated, and Sinead was one of the casualties. Everyone felt quite lost without Sinead’s calming cheerfulness around and it was a very confusing time. Nora fell to the ‘mother’ role, but was certainly no replacement, and Liam was never the same. He began to drink a lot more, but remained a dedicated father. He didn’t ever do anything to hurt the kids, but there were more than a few times that he seriously embarrassed himself (and his kids).

As time went on, Claire spent more and more time with her brothers -- especially as Nora played the mother role, which Claire found incredibly annoying. When she was 11, like the rest of her family, she was accepted to Hogwarts and was sorted into Gryffindor. She brought her rabble-rousing self there and was always trying to stir up trouble. Detentions were not an uncommon thing, but the only one who seemed to be bothered by her disciplinary record was her sister. More often than not, her father would laugh when she told him what she’d gotten into trouble for most recently. Professors, though many did not like Claire, could not deny her cleverness and even they had to laugh at a few of her jokes (at least… some of the professors).

While she was at Hogwarts, Claire studied Care of Magical Creatures, not just in honor of her parents but also because nature provided a good show of gadgets and cleverness itself in adaptation. For similar reasons, she also enjoyed Herbology. Her best subjects were easily Transfiguration and Charms, and she also took Muggle Studies for the six years she attended because it is Claire’s opinion that muggles had some fairly impressive ways of getting around without magic. Claire also played as a beater on the Gryffindor quidditch team, starting during her third year.

After Hogwarts, Claire spent a year living back at home with her Da before gravitating back toward Hogwarts to work at Zonko’s. She got an apartment in Hogsmeade and devoted herself to working on her inventions. She prides herself on her line of Fake-Up, which she had tested on Nora a few times (not with Nora’s consent, usually, but results were results) and quickly became a best-seller at Zonko’s, inspiring her first promotion.

To celebrate her newfound intelligence, Claire travelled to muggle London and got a tattoo of children’s book illustrations across her back and shoulder. Though she knew she had to get older and maybe even mature, it is her philosophy to stay forever young at heart and always try to make people smile and laugh -- and maybe even remember what it’s like to be a child again.


Describe your job duties and how you go about them:
First and foremost, Claire’s job at Zonko’s is to make sure that kids don’t steal stuff. She has had to come up with a variety of new and creative ways to catch them and particularly enjoys catching them in the act, although she has sent a few kids back to Hogwarts that slowly (but surely) became polka-dotted until they confessed their crimes. As the manager, she also must manage the schedule, which she absolutely detests. She has attempted to come up with a series of magical ways to replace doing this but to no avail. She usually ends up just covering for people who want time off, which means she usually ends up just working all the time. She doesn’t mind, she enjoys helping the clientele out with their plots of mischief. Besides, she gets paid the most out of any of the Zonko’s employees, and a few extra galleons never hurt anyone (besides maybe someone being stoned to death with galleons).

Claire must also keep kids interested in the art of pranking. Not that it’s a dying art -- kids are still just as rebellious as ever -- but there are certainly trends in the pranking world. Things that have been banned at Hogwarts for centuries, for instance, were mostly out. Other things get banned quickly and so she must get creative with redesigning the products to get them past nosy professors.


Elaborate on your expertise in your field:
Claire has been trying to keep up with her troublemaking brothers since just about the time she was born. In trying to impress them, Claire focused on perfecting the art of pranking and joking, even as her brothers grew older and lost interest in tricking everyone and setting things on fire all the time (though that’s not to say they don’t still get a kick out of it). She was a frequent customer at Zonko’s back when she was in Hogwarts, and while she was in school she also began her own line of joke and gag products called Byrne’s Burns.


Writing Sample:


Sum up your character in one paragraph:
If it shocks, eludes, or embarrasses you, Claire McByrne is probably responsible for it. Claire works at Zonko’s as the manager and contributes her own line of pranks, gadgets, whosits, and whatsits called Byrne’s Burns. You can always depend on Claire for a good friend and even better laugh.