Your Nickname: Melissa
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: Adon Eleor
Dreogan Eleor
Alberic Grimm
Gilchrist Riordan
Ahmes Morgan
Amaryllis Woolfolk
Is this a Primary or Secondary Character?: Secondary

Full Character Name: Hestia Cybele Bellona Grimm Eleor
Character Birthday & Age: 1958-11-23, 52
City & Country of Birth: London, England
Blood Purity: Pureblood
Alma Mater: Slytherin, Hogwarts
Job/Position: Tutor, Mother

Wand: 11 inches, hawthron. Dragon heartstring, spiraled shaft. Inflexible. 

Physical Description:
With dark, wavy hair and soft features, Hestia is still a beauty, though her hair is streaked with grey. The wrinkles about her eyes are indicative of a warm nature, prone to smiling. The frown lines around her mouth, however, are indicative of having raised two Eleor boys.

Personality Description:
Hestia is willful, stubborn, fiery, with a certain disregard for convention--despite her fluency in decorum and propriety.  Adept at moral acrobatics, Hestia can rationalize her use of practically any method to meet her ends when it suits her.  Sedating her children routinely? A necessary precaution for their nerves. She is, after all a doting parent.  She is dedicated to being the best mother she can be--which, of course, requires that she also receive the appropriate amount of sleep.

Hestia is, by-and-large, principle-driven, a trait that makes her an easy fit for her role as the Eleor family matriarch.  Unlike her sons, she is less likely to make herself a martyr for her causes.  She is nothing if not pragmatic, even if it requires being a little unpleasantness to be so.

Hestia is a staunch defender of those she loves--her warm nature is naturally, rather than conflictingly paired with a hot temper and ruthless streak.

She has a dry wit, particularly when needling her sons, and is very accustomed to winning debates through manipulation and logic when necessary.  But she will do it with a smile and a reassuring pat of the hand.

History:
Hestia Grimm was born to a family known for both creating dark wizards and dark wizard catchers (vampire hunters, necromancers, Aurors were all common enough vocations.)  The Grimm family is exceedingly old, with roots running deep and pure.  Their significance in select and elect circles is significant, with known alliances with the Malfoys and Blacks. As a child, Hestia was given every opportunity to excel in such circles.  She was fluent in French, received an in-depth magical education prior to enrollment in Hogwarts, travelled on holiday to all the notable places (Egypt, Italy, Germany, France...)

Hestia fit in with her family. Polite, refined, and willful.  Sorted into Slytherin.  Remarkably good marks in school.  To her parents' dismay, her willful nature led her to an open rebellion in her Hogwarts days that has continued to this day.

As part of her teenage rebellion, she enrolled in Muggle Studies course. She was so impressed by the writings of one of the theorists they studied in her sixth year that she began a correspondence with him--a quiet, passionate, but rather young wizard, as far as theorists went. Dreogan Eleor was nearly twice her age, and when she graduated from Hogwarts and married the man after only one year of courtship (and almost immediately after graduation), she scandalized her family and was cut off. No purity of the Eleor line (which, in fact, surpassed even the Grimms--dating back to well before the Common Era) could make up for his radical principles.

Hestia soon started a family in London with her new husband. Children came quickly: two sons. Hestia is known for being doting on them, but also wickedly mischievous. She took to sedating her sons--one prone to anxiety, the other prone to destructive tendencies--by slipping potions in their food. Others would frown on such a practice. Hestia really doesn't care.

When their oldest, Dree (Dreogan Jr.) turned 11, the family decided to relocate to Israel to be closer to his school--Beit Gaddol. Dreogan Eleor started a budding, socialist community which focused (illegally) upon intermingling magical and Muggle communities. Only five years later, her husband was abducted. No amount of bullying the Jerusalem Ministry of Magic could bring any resolution. Finally, at the urging of her son, she abandoned the socialist community, moved back to England, and after a time, her eldest--then youngest--joined her there.

When Dree went missing as well, likely at the hands of the same aggressors, Hestia moved back to Israel with Adon in order to more closely supervise the investigation and search for Dree.

Describe your job duties and how you go about them:
Hestia Eleor is known primarily as the mother of the Eleor brothers.  This was foisted upon her, and, all things considered, she's done passably well at it.

However, Hestia is also a private tutor and is referred to by the Ministry and Hogwarts for "remedial cases." Hestia Eleor teaches struggling Hogwarts students in their respective topics during the summer break in order to bring them up to performance expectations.

However, she views her role as much more significant than helping students receive O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s.  To her, the inequalities in the Magical community are the result of poor education.  As someone who received considerably good marks, and who taught for years at the magical-muggle kibbutz in Israel on both Muggle and Magical subjects, she feels uniquely qualified to bridge this gap.

Hestia works as a Ministry contractor through one of MAO's programs to teach magical basics to witches and wizards who have left the magical community (usually as a result of the Second Wizarding War) and seek to be reintroduced, or for select individuals who fell through the cracks and were never informed of their magical status or formally admitted to a magical institution (again, outreach has focused on Muggleborns not invited to Hogwarts during the select years at Hogwarts, as well as immigrants from other countries where no such outreach was performed). 

She also serves as a private tutor for squibs and for non-struggling Hogwarts students.  During the school year, Hestia is a private tutor for squib children, where she teaches the theoretical principles of magic so that they are well-acclimated members of magical society, despite being discriminatorily excluded from a formal education. 

As an aside: Professor McGonagall has been the recipient of several strongly-worded letters detailing her thoughts on the inadequacy of Hogwarts' education in preparing both their community's non-magically-gifted children for success in the magical world, and the magically-gifted for any world at all.  In one such letter:

While I applaud Hogwarts' longstanding success in indoctrinating the magically-gifted youth of our nation in magical arts and theory, Hogwarts' current policies hamstring our magical community and must be addressed.  We do not currently teach basic knowledge such as mathematics and the history of the nation--further encouraging a rift between Magical and Muggle worlds, but arguably also depriving our Wizarding community of necessary, basic coping mechanisms.

This is to say nothing of the implicit expectation of Hogwarts' exclusionary enrollment policies.  How is it that we can live in a society which expects  Squibs to either magically pass as Muggles to get an education in a Muggle school (despite being encouraged to not intermingle), or, alternatively  somehow cobble together their own way of learning in order to be gainfully employed in our own, Wizarding community?

I remain respectfully your former pupil,
Hestia Eleor

Elaborate on your expertise in your field:
For methods and qualifications as the mother of Adon and Dreogan Eleor, please see above personality description: willfulness, mastery of manipulation, moral ambiguity, intimidation, and benevolent defender.

For methods and qualifications as a tutor of both magical and core knowledge: Hestia Eleor received top marks at school, with a passion for learning and an even greater passion for challenging teachers and long-held beliefs.  Though she never received a formal education in “core” knowledge (which she refuses to call Muggle subjects), she has become adept enough at history, science, and math to teach at a primary school level.

When moving to Israel and helping to establish a kibbutz housing both Muggles and Mages, Hestia tackled the question of how to educate the community’s youth.  Under her urging, core subjects--mathematics, science, logic, language, and history--were taught alongside magical theoretical principles. Students eligible to attend Beit Gaddol or other schools would leave at age 11 to attend.  The kibbutz did not stay functioning long enough to test what would happen to those not eligible.  This oversight and failure bothered Hestia for some time, who sought a better solution.  Now in England, she is all too happy to put theory to practice and is a vocal defender of a more thorough education.

Of course, the righteous indignation and manipulative tactics inherent in her nature have also made her uniquely qualified to innovate and carve a place in a traditional community.  At the very least, she has been able to grow a suitable clientele base by relating to forlorn parents of squibs, failing students, alienated Muggleborns, and over-zealous parents seeking every opportunity for their own children, who do not feel their community has suitably met their needs.

Writing Sample:

Sum up your character in one paragraph:
Hestia Eleor serves as the headstrong, doting, and overly-pragmatic matriarch of the Eleor family.  Her care over her sons is her first priority but, as a woman of principles, she takes very seriously her obligation to help the youth of their magical community.  Loving, intimidating, and with a dark sense of humor, she cuts a very memorable figure, at the very least.