Your Nickname: SJ
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: Macaulay Nettlebottom
Sophie Flickwick
Waverly Roh-Ballentyne
Is this a Primary or Secondary Character?: Primary

Full Character Name: Stella Arundhati Elphick
Character Birthday & Age: 3/20/1975 (35)
City & Country of Birth: Walberswick, England
Blood Purity: Halfblood
Alma Mater: Hogwarts, Slytherin Alum
Job/Position: Professor of Divination at Hogwarts

Wand: 11 ½ inch bendy blackthorn wand, decorated shaft.

Build: Standing a slight 5’4, weighing in at 117 lbs, her frame is feminine which has often lead to people underestimating her strength and the power of her magic.
Hair: Naturally thick and jet black, often relaxed with spells and potions for easier management; worn long, but usually bound back by braids or buns. It is without a doubt her crowning glory and one true vanity.
Eyes: rich dark brown, lined with thick lashes and skillfully applied makeup.
Skintone/Complexion:  smooth tawny brown
Style Influence:  While working in the Muggle world as a “mystic” she very much played the part in vibrant fabrics and flowing dresses adored with flecks of gold as well as heavy jewelry. When she joined the Ministry her looked shifted considerably to something a little more conservative. This is something that has stayed consistent since coming to Hogwarts. She is very polished, even in her down time.

There is a distinct break Stella’s personality, the person she was before the Second War, and the person she was after. In her youth she was the essence of a Pieces; trusting and empathetic, innocent to the ugly nature of the world, always believing the absolute best about those around her. Post her involvement in the war many things about the 35 year old changed. There are people who claim a Pieces have no backbone, they lack the inherent boundary and ability to say no, this may have been true at one point of Stella but is no longer the case. Life experience has brought to her a deep sense of just how far she can be pushed and what she is willing to endure in the face of “the greater good” (it isn’t a lot). She would balk at the notion anyone has undue influence over her choices or sense of self. She might also dismiss the idea that she can be vindictive but it’s important to remember that Pieces (and Elphicks) have long memories – both for the slights and the kindness they’re shown. 

She still remains an escapist at heart though, and at times wholly unpractical (ie giving up a Ministry career to teach, in some people’s opinions). She has a sense of fantastic whimsy though it’s often masked by her need to seem professional. She is an extremely creative and empathetic person. She may be the sort of Professor to set exceedingly high expectations for her students but she is also the sort to offer as much help as a student needs, beyond just office hours and in class time. She will be your greatest supporter or worst enemy depending upon how you approach her and the advantage one might try to take. Once bitten, twice shy is her life motto, though it has not always been that way.

As a single mother, she has worked extremely hard to give her daughter all the advantages she wasn’t blessed with in early childhood. She is fiercely protective of her daughter (to almost a clichéd level if she’s honest with herself). Being mother, without a doubt, changed Stella’s priorities, especially considering what a whimsical free spirit she considered herself at the ripe old age of twenty when she became pregnant.
Childhood: The product of a brief though very intense affair between  Lunelle Mawdesley and Salvador Yaxley, she is the daughter of an emotionally rich (though fiscally poor) mother and a Pureblood murderer. When Lunelle realized the sort of man she was involved with she fled London for the seaside hamlet of Walberswick; where Stella would be born and later raised. Though not the most auspicious beginning, when Lunelle married Cosmo Elphick in 1982 it felt right for mother and daughter to take his name and start a new in a war weary world slowly piecing itself back together. Cosmo was an excellent father, exceedingly attentive and giving. In the back of her mind Stella always felt something was missing, a piece that didn’t quite fit in with the rest of her life. At 11 she went off to Hogwarts the way all little Witchlings and Wizards do, was sorted into the fine house of Slytherin and excelled in whatever she applied herself to – though her favorite classes were Potions and Divination (she received O’s in both). In her fifth year a peculiar gift began to manifest itself, first in the form of dreams that felt too real to be called dreams at all. For more than a year she dealt with strange visions and haunting dreams, phantoms that wouldn’t leave her for days but she was unsure what they meant. By the time she left Hogwarts, she was well in control of her Seeing ability, a rather remarkable feat for someone so young.

Post-Hogwarts/War: By the time she was 20 she found herself pregnant by her first love and having to put those grand dreams of seeing the world on hold. This was also the moment her biological father decided to reenter her life. She had pause of course, her mother gave her plenty of warning about getting mixed up with the blonde flat-face’d man. However, he seemed genuinely interested in learning more about his daughter and grandchild (little Isadora) , and there was an urge within Stella to forge a bond. She was trying to make the pieces of her life fit together, and it seemed to be going very well. Yaxley was very interested in how her Seeing abilities were developing, what she felt coming for her future, only rarely asking about visions on a grander scale. She was so captivated by the attention and the emotional need he was feeling she didn’t realize until it was too late that he was filtering information back to the Dark Lord’s growing army. She had never questioned his politics, though she was aware of his employment with the Ministry (a fact that had been a deciding factor in her trust for him).

When she realized what was happening she tried to break contact, threatened to go to the Ministry (though most were still in denial about the return of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named) it was at this point her father placed her under the Imperius curse. The flaw in this logic was that since Stella was not in control of her mind she could not control her ability, which meant she was useless to them. Upon her release from the curse, Yaxley threatened bodily harm on not only her mother and adoptive father but Isadora as well. It was under this coercion and duress that she continued to provide prophecy, until shortly before the fall of the Dark Lord, when she vanished into the Muggle world with Izzy.

Post War/Ministry: Living off the grid as a muggle was not an easy task as the only skills Stella had ever cultivated were magical. However, she found her niche as a shop girl and later as a sort of pseudo-Mystic, relying on her extensive horticulture knowledge to create Potions (which were nothing more than herbal remedies and concoctions containing no actual magical ingredients), selling talismans (also fake, containing no magical properties), and pretending to be “psychic” – though she never used her Seeing ability, and all fortunes were told using old fashioned parlor tricks and psychology. In this time she had no contact with her family for fear the Ministry would prosecute her for war crimes (to this day few outside or even within the Ministry know the extent of her involvement).

Shortly before Izzy would have begun receiving her Hogwarts acceptance letter(s), an old friend tracked the duo down in Glasgow where Stella was running a small apothecary. With some urging (and a thinly veiled threat she could still be brought before the Wizengamot and tired for her involvement with the Dark Army, though in reality her name had been cleared due to the coerced nature of said involvement), Stella re-entered the Wizarding World. Over the next four years she would try to repair relationships with family and friends she had left behind, becoming involved with a fellow Ministry employee – her first romantic entanglement since Isadora’s father. For the first time since her father betrayed her she began to open herself up to those around her, focusing on something other than Izzy was a strange foreign experience but in the beginning she felt the flickers of the girl she had been before the war coming back to life – and one could hardly argue that magical life wasn’t easier than pretending to be a muggle and living in complete secrecy, and isolation.

Over the next four years she would build strong bonds within the Ministry, though there were niggling feelings of guilt, she worked to accept that war was hell for everyone involved and the world at large had moved on. For something that had such a massive impact on her life, and in fact changed the path she was on for a good many years, the signs of it are lost in day to day life. It was only with the end of her relationship (a rather nasty break up that she refuses to dwell on, or speak about) that she found herself aching to once again take a change of scene, which brought her to Hogwarts. Of course trying to outrun an awkward break up wasn’t her only reason for choosing education over traveling the countryside reading fortunes, being close to Isadora is a very important factor, wanting to soak up the few years she has left before her impetuous daughter takes off for the great wide world to live the dreams her mother had cut short.

Describe your job duties and how you go about them:
Teaching is a newly acquired skill, something she is very much trying to work out as she goes. It is an extreme change of pace from working in the Office of Prophecy within the MoM, which was generally a solitary job. She very much enjoys interacting with her students, especially the third years who are new to the subject and haven’t had several different instructors to teach them conflicting practices.

Elaborate on your expertise in your field:
Stella was an excellent Divination student during her time had Hogwarts, and has even been gifted with “The Sight” as Trelawney would say. It is a skill she has kept finely honed despite the years she spent living as a muggle. Having spent years as a “charlatan” she remained well versed in all forms of Divination (though she still doesn’t like practicing entail reading) the trick now is imparting that wisdom to students.

Writing Sample:

See Dolly St. James

Sum up your character in one paragraph:
A proud mother and recent addition to the Hogwarts staff, Stella Elphick possesses a natural charm and quick wit, though she remains guarded about her past and recent rocky personal life. She gives off the impression of being easily accessible, kind heart'd and empathetic, but if you cross a boundary with her you will be hard pressed to find an opportunity to make up for it.

Special Ability

Character Name: Stella Elphick
Age: 35
Character Biography: click
Do any of your other Characters have Special Abilities?: Yes
If Yes, then Please provide their name and a link to their bio: Sophie Flickwick - Seer
Waverly Roh-Ballentyne - Animagus
 
Special Ability: Seer

What level is this ability at?: Advanced

At what age did your character gain this ability?: Adolescence

How did they learn or hone this ability?:
It started at about the age of 13, though Stella was completely unaware of what was happening. It was little things, predicting pop quizzes, an eerie sense she knew before something was going to happening, niggling thoughts in the back of her mind that she had seen something before. By the time she was fifteen the gift had presented itself fully, a series of visions about incidents befalling the kooky (and accident prone) Divination Professor. Obviously Trelawney couldn't be much help and she was put into contact with one of the Ministy's official Seers, who spent the next five years helping her to make sense of the seeming unknowable.

Describe how the Special Ability influences their life.  What do they use it for?:
During the Second rise of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, Stella was coerced into providing Prophecy for the Dark Lord's army. Post war trauma she vanished for Wizarding society and lived as a muggle because she couldn't deal. Four or five years ago she returned to work with the Ministry, in the Office of Prophecy. Given the control she has over her gift, Scrying has proven to be a viable option beyond dream ciphering or the stone still possession exhibited by Trelawney.

Write a description of what happens when your character is exhibiting this Special Ability: There have been occasions on which the Possession sort of Vision has hit out of nowhere, seizing up her small body while she spots prophetic gibberish that then must be decoded. In other instances is it has been a niggling notion, a discomfort in her body - the way some people talk about aching bones during a storm. When this happens she consults her crystal or her cards, she also feels that in these times opening her mind up with the aid of Potion or Herb can be very helpful. There have been times she's been caught completely off guard by a brief flash of what some might consider hallucinations, or visions in the bottom of a tea cup.