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Full Character Name: Ariadne Clementine Gamp (aka "Harry")
Ariadne
Means "most holy", composed of the Cretan Greek elements αρι (ari) "most" and αδνος (adnos) "holy". In Greek mythology, Ariadne was the daughter of King Minos. She fell in love with Theseus and helped him to escape the Labyrinth and the Minotaur, but was later abandoned by him. Eventually she married the god Dionysus.
Character Birthday & Age: 28th July 1993, 18 (will turn 19 in July 2012)
City & Country of Birth: St Mungo's Hospital, London
Pureblood, Halfblood or Muggleborn: Halfblood
House & Year: Gryffindor
6th 7th Year Graduated 2011
Current Job: Trainee Quidditch Correspondent for the Daily Prophet
Wand: Sycamore, 8 inches with dragon heartstring
Sycamore
The sycamore makes a questing wand, eager for new experience and losing brilliance if engaged in mundane activities. It is a quirk of these handsome wands that they may combust if allowed to become ‘bored,’ and many witches and wizards, settling down into middle age, are disconcerted to find their trusty wand bursting into flame in their hand as they ask it, one more time, to fetch their slippers.
As may be deduced, the sycamore’s ideal owner is curious, vital and adventurous, and when paired with such an owner, it demonstrates a capacity to learn and adapt that earns it a rightful place among the world’s most highly-prized wand woods.
Dragon Heartstring
As a rule, dragon heartstrings produce wands with the most power, and which are capable of the most flamboyant spells. Dragon wands tend to learn quicker than other types. While they can change allegiance if won from their original master, they always bond strongly with the current owner.
The dragon wand tends to be easiest to turn to the Dark Arts, though it will not incline that way of its own accord. It is also the most prone of the three cores to accidents, being somewhat temperamental. It also tends to be lethally hazardous if combined with certain woods, such as Cherry or Yew.
Physical Description: Ariadne is on the shorter side at 5'4" but doesn't let it stop her. Wearing bright colours with stripes she dresses like the personality, confident and bold. When she was at school, her uniform was well worn and pockmarked where she caught it in herbology or scorched it in charms and defence.
Of mixed parentage, she takes after her mother considerably more in her appearance than her father. With a lean figure, Ariadne is athletic and energetic, with wide brown eyes and pale tan skin which deepens pleasingly under regular sunshine, but a Scottish winter makes her feel altogether too pale.
In the past couple of years, Ariadne has become fond of straightening her hair which left to its own devices is tightly sprung and needs to be plaited into dreadlocks or pinned back so as not to engulf her. She much prefers the refined look of relaxing it, though occasionally she'll get rather discontent with it and wish for her natural curls, such are the conveniences of magic.
She feels the cold in winter more than some, and as such likes to layer up her clothes and has become a dab hand with warming charms. Whenever she can be away in warm, foreign climes, she prefers it.
She walks with short, purposeful strides and is often seen dashing between places or gabbling off at ten to the dozen to a friend. Her hand gestures are large and expressive, and she speaks quickly and loudly. Although her accent is South English, she drops her consonants and speaks very informally to most people, other than when she's in trouble with her professors (her employers these days), or her paternal family, where she swaps into a much more reasoned way of speaking that slips up more often than not into her habitual slang.
Personality Description: Ariadne was born under the sign of Leo. Her upbringing split between two families has helped her become more resilient and she has had to learn to be patient and diplomatic at times when her father and her mother rub each other the wrong way over matters. She enjoys attention, which was behind her wanting to spend more time with her father when her half sister was born, to be the only child again.
She is bold and talkative, which she gets from her father. Shadowing him on his travels for his job as she was brought up has given her a good, if not rather masculine approach on how to talk to absolute strangers and conduct herself in foreign lands. She's also seen the bad side too, where they've run into problems, and suffered nightmares and upset when it was a bit much for her.
At school she was a willing volunteer, and threw her energy behind everything social and to do with her house. She'll scale walls to prove a point if dared. She invented and lead chants for Gryffindor at matches, and for Hogwarts at the Tetrawizard. She'd have done more if she hadn't shouted her voice out first.
Instilled with a love of travel and investigation, Ariadne is overly curious about places, far more content to explore buildings and lands than to question someone on their own history. She enjoys tales from her mentors and friends about foreign travel or meeting different cultures, but forgets to ask them how they are or compliment them on a new haircut. She dreams a lot about travel.
As the years have gone by, Ariadne has discovered her energy and her humour can be attractive with the boys, and even to some girls. This completely threw her at first, and still does sometimes, because she tends to keep boys as friends, and nothing more. She naturally gets on better with boys than girls, but since half way through her fifth year, she has become more attune with the fact people can like her for more than a friend, though she is quite scared at how that might pan out, and with who at the moment.
Because of her confident stance, she can sometimes be over demanding on others, and overbearing. It can turn people off her, and against her if she tries to push them to do something they are dead set against. For the quietest of housemates it can upset them, and Ariadne is at a loss as to what she's done wrong. Equally, if she is pushed to do something she doesn't want to do, her heels dig into the ground as if they were rooted to the spot and she can unleash a horrible string of words.
History: Ariadne is the first born to her mother, Nadine, and the only child to her father, Orion. The couple were married while Ariadne was on the way, the Gamp family mostly intervening there to ask Orion to 'do right' of the witch who was expecting his first child.
When Ariadne was not long past her third birthday, her father strayed from her mother, which was sadly no great surprise to Nadine. He was lovely to her as it was, but they'd never intended to be together, both free souls who had enjoyed a very intense, fun relationship that had resulted in Ariadne, but otherwise would have been a long-distant memory.
The marriage was dissolved and Ariadne spent her childhood between both families, electing to spend more time with her father a few years after her half sister arrived, quietly preferring not to compete with another sibling and a step father.
As a teenager, and in her holidays from Hogwarts she divides time between both families, her sister now old enough to attend Hogwarts too. They have a good relationship but Ariadne does not consider them to be the closest of siblings.
Home life as such is a little unsettled, but Ariadne has adjusted well since it has been the same since she was young. She and her father live on a boat, which means they can choose to moor anywhere around the coast. It suits his fancy to be able to travel, and write, as he writes travel guides for witches and wizards for a famous international publisher. His more serious, factual writing makes it through the edits, whereas his sillier observations on the world make it into Witch Weekly. Ariadne is both baffled and amused at his fanmail which stacks up at the WW offices until he retrieves it.
Her favourite times have been when she's been with her father as he works, during her summer. She almost considered giving up Hogwarts after her OWLs to join him full time, but father sat daughter down one night and said he would not hear of her throwing away an opportunity to open doors. NEWTs weren't the big end all, he knew - he had some, but the more important thing was he
had some and it meant people gave you a second more of their time when they considered you for a job.
Also, he reasoned, neither of them would hear the end of it from Ariadne's grandfather, Mortimer, if they went swanning off round the world together and she neglected her studies. Ariadne finds her grandparents on her father's side a bit intimidating, especially as her grandfather is an unspeakable. They are far more traditional, and she suspects he is a little disappointed his granddaughter was sorted into Gryffindor, when he was a Slytherin. Still, they always ensure she has the books she needs for school, when her father can sometimes forget.
At school Ariadne quickly cast aside her full name in preference of "Ari" or "Harry" as a nickname. Indulging in quidditch, she is a practical and useful member of the Gryffindor team for some games, but never overly shines. She is happiest if she can take a boat out onto the lake, and if she does, she steels herself with copious warming charms before she takes a swim in the late spring and summer, where the water is still bitterly cold.
She made a great effort in her first year to find out the ins and outs of the castle, following other houses back to their common rooms just to find out where they were. It proved invaluable at times she was running late for lessons, to remember whether the secret passageway was open every second Wednesday of the month, or third.
Her academic performance was nothing to write home about, but she stayed out of running into trouble, and earned the odd house point every month. The Professors who taught her contributed a fair amount to how much effort she put in, for example, she found the wild Professor Kesali a bit of a hoot and was far more attentive in his lessons, than say in Transfiguration where they'd seen a few professors in recent years.
Amongst her house her name was known and she made efforts to try and learn a few of the new faces, but is not quite a big sister type, more of a big brother. She'd tease and cajole them and start the odd debate in the common room amongst her housemates, and if a fight broke out, she was more likely to jump straight into the middle of it than try and pull people apart from behind.
Her dorm mates found her a source of amusement and irritation at night because she talks in her sleep. Her worst house point loss was when she took a dare from a Slytherin in her third year and went into the forest without permission, and they set her up. Spitting feathers would have been one way to put it, but it was exactly what the Slytherin boy in question did when she found him later and hexed him.
OWL Grades:- Astronomy - Acceptable
Ariadne has a good working knowledge of the night sky, and has a particular knack for navigating using them - Charms - Exceeds Expectations
Ariadne particularly appears to enjoy practical and functional spells. Her results are often raw and sufficient, rather than refined which would earn her higher marks. - Defence - Outstanding
Gamp spent a proportion of her final term sitting regular detentions to focus her efforts, and as such raised her practical and theoretical knowledge to the required standard for her high examination result. - Transfiguration - Acceptable
Ariadne finds transfiguration more challenging, and should work hard on her final product - Herbology - Exceeds Expectations
Gamp thoroughly enjoys practical work over theory, and has a particular interest in hedgerow and marine studies - Potions - Acceptable
It is clear Gamp's interest in potions has diminished in the final year of OWL studies. Would not recommend she continues to study the subject after this year. - History - Acceptable
Following a great deal of hard study in her final term, Ariadne has achieved an acceptable grade in her OWL examination by the skin of her teeth. - Arithmancy - Exceeds Expectations
After a difficult start studying arithmancy, Ariadne now seems to be achieving a firmer grasp on the subject
For NEWTs, Ariadne studied Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, Transfiguration and Arithmancy. By knuckling down in the last few months after the tragic and horrific acts of her paternal grandparents, Ariadne turned out an
outstanding NEWT in charms, three
exceeds expectations in Transfiguration, Defence and Arithmancy and an
acceptable in Herbology.
NEWT results- Charms - Favourite! Kesali's a hoot
- Transfiguration - Tricky, but a worthy challenge
- Defence - Mad not to study it, nearly everyone does
- Arithmancy - Often hard, bit frustrating, and I'm somewhat regretting studying it
- Herbology - My favourite question is "is it edible?"
Since leaving Hogwarts, Ariadne moved into a Diagon Alley flat with Nick Bevans and Virgil Carstairs. She went through a string of different jobs, ending up sacked or leaving for all manner of reasons, her heart not in any of them. A chance encounter with the legendary Ginny Weasley led to the opportunity to be a trainee Quidditch Correspondent with the Prophet, shadowing her all-time hero. This is not enough for her mother though, but in the eyes of her younger half sister she's doing great.
How Do You Fit Into Your House?: Bold, brave, confident, outspoken, Ariadne embraces being a Gryffindor and is fiercely proud. She asked the sorting hat if she'd fit and it agreed. Ariadne is a great friend and an ally for many. She will go the extra mile to help someone and her life is full of adventure.
Gryffindor Leo
This is a natural sign for Gryffindors, not least because the griffin is part lion. Gryffindors born under this sign are outgoing, friendly, affectionate, and likeable. They make friends easily and are crushed when their advances are rejected. Their romantic, chivalrous nature makes them perfect examples of all that is best in their House. However, they are also bossy, domineering, spendthrift, and overly dramatic (ever heard the phrase "drama queen?") They have sharp tempers and need to learn to direct their anger toward only needful causes. The natural creativity and flamboyance of Leo makes Gryffindors born under this sign good at most everything they attempt, provided they apply themselves to learning magic rather than using magic to hog the limelight.
Sum up your character in one paragraph: The adventurous Ariadne would love to grow up to be a pirate, but as that's not entirely sensible, she would settle with a job that would allow her to continue travelling the world as her father does. Always rushing from place to place, it is all about the where rather than the who for Ariadne, or as she prefers to be nicknamed, "Ari" or "Harry". Living life as fast as she can, Ariadne is not one for finishing projects, but for leading her friends on all manner of quests and crusades.
Ariadne Gamp, Trainee Quidditch Correspondent