Your Nickname: Sunny
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: Bethan Ellis
Brynn Ellis
Evelyn Grimlish (Secondary)
Is this a Primary or Secondary Character?: Primary

Full Character Name: Emilia Hatherley
Character Birthday & Age: June 24th, 1995 - 15 years old
City & Country of Birth: Birmingham, England
Pureblood, Halfblood or Muggleborn: Muggleborn
House & Year: Hufflepuff Fifth Year

Wand:  10 ½ inches, pliable chestnut, with a core of unicorn mane hair

Physical Description:
Emilia was never particularly concerned with appearances growing up. Her soft, bright shade of wavy ginger hair always helped her stand out just the slightest bit, becoming the singular trait that distinguished her appearance in any significant way. The rest of her slight and scrawny person remained in the background, a pale, flesh toned blur on the periphery. Frankly, that is how she has felt for a long time, especially since hitting puberty, when suddenly a magnifying glass seemed to be held up to her every flaw. She wasn't overly flirty or focused on boys at the beginning of her hormone-fueled days, too concerned with schoolwork and friends and family drama, so she wasn't drawing the male attention that may have convinced her that she was someone worth looking at. It's only recently that she's beginning to mature and wonder if she might be pretty.

 She likes to look neat - not dressy, not sexy, not done up or styled beyond recognition with glamor charms and potions. Her uniform is typically impeccably kept, her hair tied back in pretty and meticulous ponytails in anticipation of practical work. Her casual style is similar – constantly coordinated, fairly modest, and reasonably stylish, with accessories laid out in advance. Her whole aesthetic is very preppy, even if her greatest fear is being mistaken for a posh git (the only fear greater than that is that she actually is a posh git).

Her eyes are small and boast an amber-tinged shade of medium brown. Her face, as well as all of the features on it, are rather narrow and only grow narrower as her face tapers off into a distinguished chin. She is small, and all of her features are small – even her nose, which is noticeably the largest feature on her face, is small, but appears larger because of the tinier features around it. Even so, she is very much in proportion, and some people have been surprised by how petite she actually is when they stop to compare her to others. Along with this comes the height disadvantages and the knobby knees and elbows (plus, in her own mind, getting overlooked for the leggier girls who draw the eye). Sometimes she thinks about it, sometimes she doesn't – but the way she looks and the way she is perceived has been on her mind more and more as time goes on, and it has a great weight now that she's starting fifth year and has about a million other more important things to think about. Naturally.

Her hair is still her most noteworthy feature, which she either loves or hates depending on the day. It is princess hair, plain and simple – a delicate pale ginger color, with a natural wave that ends in the occasional bouncy curl. She wears it long. Whether or not she wants to maintain her fringe is one of her greatest daily debates. Just when you think she's growing it out, she cuts it again, and the cycle starts all over – but magic makes it so that she can expedite the process if necessary, which causes even more agonizing indecision.  


Personality Description:
Do you need a hug? You look like you need a hug. Chances are, Emilia would be happy to provide that hug. She loves people, and she loves the feeling of kinship, and like a herding dog, she possesses the intrinsic drive to keep everyone safe and happy and together so that the world can keep spinning and all will be well. It is a futile effort, of course. People are not sheep, and a hug doesn't fix all of the world's hurts, but that doesn't mean that Emilia – affectionately called 'Mimi' by those who love her – doesn't feel a burning inside her urging her to try. She may be naive and idealistic, but she's more intelligent than she sometimes appears, which means she's more or less aware of the futility of her desires and forges ahead anyway. She's just as industrious as any Hufflepuff, and continues treating the world gently because, at the end of the day, she wishes to be taken care of, too.

Yes, she is a squishy, touchy, lovey dovey girl who likes to keep those she loves close and struggles with the idea and the reality of being on her own. She is a person's person, generally pleasant in every way, and happiest when surrounded by others, and frightened most by the prospect of being on her own – in both the short term and long term sense. This has made a life spent in boarding schools a challenge. She is needy, but wouldn't say so out loud. Her parents have done everything in their power to set her up for success, and she believes that they know what is best for her, and doing them proud is one of her greatest motivations on a day to day basis – but that means having a stiff upper lip when she's faltering internally and  creating her own safety net through close friendships.

Long ago she learned that keeping busy and distracted and getting herself good and tired was the best way to keep from melting into a puddle of tears and anxiety while away from home – so she keeps herself busy and distracted and gets herself good and tired as often as humanly possible. She may not naturally be the best student, but she puts a lot into schoolwork, and even more into her passion projects – which, frankly, are rather a new phenomenon in her life. At fifteen she is beginning to learn who she is and who she wants to be, and she is as passionate as any teenager about the things she has decided are worth her time. A major focus of her unbridled teenage passion is fairness – namely muggle equality, which is an issue that has been heavy on her mind since she entered wizarding society. She is still developing her opinions, but at the moment she has taken a stance against the statute of secrecy and its validity and efficacy in a modern society and is a staunch advocate for cooperation between people. Part of this is because of her father and the state of his health – she knows that wounds like his could have been treated in the wizarding world, yet he's still struggling with muggle treatment. Focusing on the issue is a coping mechanism, in a way – it's easier to think she can change the world than to deal with the issues on her doorstep. It's incredibly myopic but, so far, effective – it makes her feel like she can effect change. Her interest in politics is a fledgling thing, but very serious to her, and she takes it seriously – and acts seriously when discussing it. It's funny how quickly the human cuddle puddle can transform herself into a small barrister when the time comes to debate her case.

Most of her interests, however, are not quite so solitary in nature. Having attended a prep school during her childhood, she was forced to become well rounded or risk having nothing to talk about when being interviewed by the headmasters of selective colleges – a fate worse than death, of course. Once a hockey player, she can't quite wrap her head around how a school like Hogwarts can only offer one sport. She's not used to being able to opt out! Most of the hobbies she maintained are also the sort that you can't do alone – which require harmony and commitment and, yes, a good dose of Hufflepuff loyalty. She is a chorister, and spent many a year playing with a handbell choir – the epitome of nerdy, blissfully musical collaboration.

 And Emilia is pretty nerdy – she thinks. Well, she's certainly not popular. She's not really sure. She thinks a lot about social standing, mostly because she had what some would consider a fairly posh upbringing, but doesn't feel like a part of that world at all, and resents the idea that she might be just another one of those pretentious gits – to the point where she intentionally inserts archaic posh phrases into her regular conversation just for ironic effect, and has been doing so for so long that it has become so very automatic, old sport.  Tally ho! She truly does want to be liked – more than she'd admit – but she doesn't think it's worth selling her soul to the hogwarts aristocracy... but often feels tempted to try. She wants to be cool and smart and good – desperately – she just doesn't want to change.

It's probably better that she isn't a part of that cut throat world, however, because she really doesn't handle stress or sadness well. She suffers from chronic headaches with no discernible source. She has been examined, and even occasionally wears a pair of spectacles with such a miniscule amount of correction that they may as well be a fashion accessory, but at the end of the day everyone is pretty sure that 'I have a headache' is code for 'I can't deal with life right now and I am going to go to a dark place and hope someone comes to take care of me.'  


History:
When Emilia Hatherley was small, she saw her daddy only sometimes. She understood why – or she said she did. Daddy was in the army, a careerist like his own father and intent on becoming an officer, and that meant he was away for lengths of time. When he came back, things were joyous. Mummy could relax because she finally had help. They moved a lot, certainly, which was only moderately problematic when she was very young, because her world was still very small and so was she. Hers was a thoroughly muggle upbringing, with muggle parents and in muggle neighborhoods, with muggle things and muggle sensibilities. Her paternal grandparents were rich (not wealthy – rich – they made that distinction clear), so although her day to day lifestyle was hardly lavish, she did not want for much. If she needed it and she lacked it, and even if her parents couldn't provide it, it would fall from the heavens once word got around to the grandparents. She was an only child. That wasn't the intention at first, but Mummy made the decision after learning first hand what it was like to raise a child more or less on her own, so they put all of their hopes into Emilia. They wanted her to succeed. Before she was old enough to know better, she was very happy.

Unfortunately, all must age – and with age comes the wisdom of experience, and with wisdom of experience comes and end to ignorance, and with an end to ignorance comes the inevitable pain of life. Emilia was a Mummy's girl. They were the best of friends, and no one was closer than the mother and daughter, who made it their life's goal to spend as many hours of the day actively snuggling as possible. She was born with the most loving temperament, and sought strong, close relationships with those she cared about. She absolutely worshiped her teachers at school, for example, and she adored her friends, picking them bouquets of weeds and walking into school holding someone's hand every single day. Unfortunately, her family's lifestyle meant that she left schools frequently and started over at new ones. She was constantly in mourning for her people, which caused her to grow even closer to her mother, who was her rock. It was clear that she was the sort of child who craved consistency - but she also needed some kind of intervention if she was going to function in life without depending on her mother as the source of all comfort.

Enter the rich grandparents.

At the age of eight, Emilia found herself beginning year three, not at a local primary school, but at a prep school in the country – as a boarder. In theory, it solved every one of her problems. She'd get to remain at one school for a number of years to gain some consistency, she'd have an opportunity to learn to live without her mother, and she'd have a greater chance of getting into the right schools and succeeding in life. The problem was, she was homesick every day of her miserable little life. She couldn't even enjoy her weekends home because she'd spend them actively anxious about having to return. It broke her mother's heart, but also illustrated how much Emilia needed the experience. It would be a lie to say that she didn't grow as a result. She had so much more exposure to languages and music and athletics and was busy with tutoring or activities every hour of every day.  She was an eager, loving girl, despite her emotional challenges, and even if her heart was hurting, she did learn independence while she was at school.

Unfortunately, no matter how well she adjusted or how hard she studied, she wasn't sure she'd get very far in life - considering she was of the devil and all.

At eight years old, she convinced herself that she was possessed by Satan. Her family wasn't particularly religious, but everyday at school began with chapel, so she'd picked up on a thing or two. The whole 'The Devil Owns My Mortal Soul' thing was her little secret, and gave her about as much anxiety as anything else in her little life. Her particular form of early magical incontinence came in the form of, well... fire starting. She was essentially the protagonist in a horror movie of her own creation. Emilia's magic manifested itself most often when she was filled up to a brim with a hot, burning feeling that she wanted to get out... and then suddenly there would be a fire. She knew that she was causing them. She didn't know how she did it, and she couldn't have articulated exactly why, but she just knew it was her fault and she felt immense guilt because she didn't choose to be inhabited by demons! She loved her teddies too much to be so inherently evil! Nevertheless, there was a plague of small fires at her school, though nobody suspected her. Producing that magic was exhausting for such a small, untrained witch, and every episode resulted in some time with the matron, where she complained of a headache. That was just the start of a life of chronic complaints of that ilk.  

She was home for the summer after year five when the strange person came. Both of her parents were home at the time. The strange person explained about magic, and it was confusing. That's really all Emilia remembers about that day, because it was, frankly, chaotic. Her parents, who lived away from her for the majority of the year (and her father more than that) were unlike the parents of many muggleborns in that they didn't necessarily have suspicions that their child was different, because their drapes were seldom alight with the physical manifestation of a ten year old's passionate feelings. When Emilia found out, however, she cried – not the way she cried for her mother at night at school, but with silent, gushing tears of pure relief that spoke to finally having an answer to a question she'd never been able to ask. Her parents, however, weren't convinced. They saw magic performed in front of them and still weren't convinced. They needed time to internalize what they were learning. Emilia, after all, was going to be sitting common entrance in a number of years and was currently preparing for life as a boarder at a selective but quaint grammar school in London. She'd chosen London for herself – the buildings were very old and, she imagined, rather difficult to burn down.

As it turns out, strange people were very persuasive. Her parents were won over after taking a field trip to purchase a wand, during which time they were able to see that their child could produce magic and confirm they most definitely could not – and that a wizarding world most definitely did exist alongside their own. Emilia, however, was reluctant. She'd been anxious when she still thought she was the spawn of Satan, but at least she hadn't been banished to Scotland. There were worse things than getting banished to Scotland, probably, but her life had been fairly idyllic to date so she was having trouble thinking of any. She had absolutely no conception of magic or what it was or where it came from, and more than anything she was confused about what she was going to be doing at Hogwarts. It was in a castle, they'd told her. She wondered if it was full of posh devil children, like Eton but with more burning.

Before she left for school, Daddy left for Afghanistan. She knew he was going, and she'd known for some time, but it didn't make the transition much easier for anyone. Her mother didn't know how to navigate amongst wizards, and they were both on edge. Somehow, however, she made it to the train and to the school, where she was ultimately sorted into Hufflepuff in the most normal, unexceptional manner possible. The hat saw industry and a passion for justice within her, and she was satisfied with that assessment... though subsequently horrified that a hat was making an assessment of her character, because apparently that was a thing.

Hogwarts was better than she expected. It was absolutely horrifying and shocking in every conceivable way... but still an improvement over what she'd envisioned. There were many more children than she was used to, and they all seemed much bigger, and everything around her seemed quite old, and things kept happening that she hadn't realized could happen. She was too scared to be her bubbly, friendly, sweet self. She had two modes – crying or silent. It was only in the dorms that she began to come out of her shell. It turned out that going to boarding school from the age of eight had some advantages – she was very independent, and was happy to help the girls in her dorm, especially with the uniform neckties. If she hadn't gone away then her mother would have been tying hers into perpetuity. So there was that.

She adjusted to the coursework and the magic and the quills quicker than she adjusted to the lack of phone calls home and her failure to understand how post worked. She had to accept that there were no phones here – there was no other choice – but the post was a problem to be solved, so she got on the case with the help of some more knowledgeable schoolmates. As it turned out, owls were cool – very cool. Not only did they make it possible to contact home, but you could stroke them and give them treats, and sometimes they sat on you. She liked owls. After owls came everything else.

Over the course of that school year her father would be injured and return home, where he would remain full time to recover and receive surgery and treatment. Their already challenging marriage would become even more challenging, and existing faults would grow deeper – a distance would remain even when there was no distance between them. There would be no opportunities to put on a show for their daughter during this time, because she wouldn't return home until the summer. By the time she was back, the dynamic had changed. She could sense it, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Had she been gone that long?

Second year was easier than first – at school, anyway. She was becoming more confident with a wand, and was beginning to notice the places where the muggle and magical worlds overlapped. At home, meanwhile, her parents were in the process of getting a separation. Emilia was doing amazing things, and she'd never been so proud of herself. She sounded so very chuffed in her letters that her mother always kept it positive. It wouldn't be finalized until nearly summertime, when she'd return home to learn the full story. She wouldn't be living in army housing any longer. It wasn't as strange as she'd expected it to be, because how much of her life had she spent moving into new places with her mother? Once it finally hit her, however, it hit her hard, and she struggled with it. Daddy was different, and she didn't understand exactly why, and she couldn't help but take it personally. Mum said it was because he'd been injured, and somehow she clung to that. If he hadn't been injured so badly to begin with, would any of this have happened? She became somewhat fixated on the idea, and even more fixated on the idea that magical healing could fix injuries. What she didn't fully understand was the extent of the injuries that were more internal than external. Even so, she became angry at the idea that magical healing was only for magic users – and thus her little crusade for equality began in earnest.

Third year was the year that the divorce was finalized. It was the year when she began taking Runes and CoMC (because owls), and the year when she realized she actually really enjoyed history class, because it was helping her think critically about the things she was becoming more passionate about. It was the year of the strangest Christmas ever – and, most notably, the year that she became a different kind of homesick. She was homesick for a home she couldn't return to, and instead of pining for her mother in the way in which she'd grown accustomed, she'd settled for typical teenage angst. It came naturally. She  wasn't the overt sort of angsty, and tended to focus her rage on matters of social justice, and also on spots, because she was thirteen. By fourth year things were going back to normalcy in her life, just in time for the school to fill with chaos and foreign students and mean professors and all kinds of drama to face head on. By then she was an established member of the school choir, as well as a contributor to the Hogwarts Howler, where she found an outlet for her developing political opinions (even if most skimmed over her editorials for the gossip). She looked in on the school owls because she felt sad that they don't have proper families, and, yes, continued to do her friends' uniform ties on occasions, because sloppy neckties are a pet peeve of hers.

She's been hearing about fifth year for her entire Hogwarts career, and feels like she knows more or less what to expect – she always knew she'd be taking exams of this variety at some point in her education, and she'd like to think she'll be prepared when the time comes. There's more to life at school than exams, however, and the fairly sensitive, somewhat anxious, terribly passionate girl is sure to see her fair share of good days and bad before she gets that far!

Classes:

Core Classes Astronomy Charms Defense Against the Dark Arts Herbology History of Magic Potions Transfiguration No

Electives Study of Ancient Runes No Care of Magical Creatures No No

How Do You Fit Into Your House?:
Emilia was a born Hufflepuff. Justice and loyalty – two of the standout traits valued by Helga Hufflepuff, are two of Mimi's own dearest values. Friendship and kinship are what make her world spin, and loyalty is an inherent factor in that kind of dedication. Likewise, her background has made the inequity between the muggle and wizarding worlds much more visible to her, and her inborn concern for fairness has meant that a passionate desire for change burns hot in her veins. More complexly, however, is an underlying Hufflepuff value – that all be accepted and all treated the same. Those would be the factors in Emilia's perfect world, and highlight the reason why the Hufflepuff common room is such a safe space in a world in which she suffers from class confusion on the muggle side and identity confusion on the wizarding side.

Writing Sample:
[See Bethan Ellis]

Sum up your character in one paragraph:
 Emilia Hatherley is a girl who craves consistency above all else, and never seems to find it where she expects to – but despite feeling mild disappointment with the world at large, works tirelessly everyday to make the world she lives in a world in which she can feel proud to inhabit. As a muggleborn, she cannot remain blind to the rather archaic ways of the wizarding world, and finds herself very concerned with the pursuit of justice. Most of the time, however, she is a sugar cube. She is snuggly sweetness in its purest form, and lives for her friends and relationships. Very well rounded from a childhood spent in prep school, this sensitive soul has a variety of hobbies that keep her very, very busy in the interest of preventing her from getting very, very anxious. Her already bizarre family life is tumultuous of late, so crazy Hogwarts is the closest thing to a true 'home' that she has – and she is intent on doing all she can to make it a beautiful place for her friends and herself.