Physical Description

Possessing somewhat of a darker complexion and ensemble of features than many of her classmates, Laney stands out amidst the fairer and more doll-like English roses of Hogwarts School. At 5'7" or 5'8”, she is tall, but not overly so, and it would be fair to label her leggy, but strong for someone of relatively slim build. The only-vaguely visible Quidditch-toned muscles in her arms and abs are nothing to dismiss with a wave of the wand, even so. However, Laney also has small, feminine shoulders, and hips that are a bit wider than the rest of her, adding a touch of female softness to her figure, which is hidden as often as it is revealed. Like her closest friend, Laney has several special tattoos in carefully chosen places, mostly amateur inked gifts from the very same person, and hopes to get more when she graduates. She has a charmed moon on shoulder that cycles through the real moon's calendar, and a simply sketched, moving magpie on her hipbone.

Only further distinguishing her is the fact that the Irving girl severed her long brown hair in the summer before her sixth year. She has kept it short ever since, to the consternation of her evil step-mum. The short, choppy locks, which tease the nape of Laney’s neck and frame her refined jaw-line, were a gift to herself. Though the cut is hardly an improvement for keeping pesky chocolate tresses out of her eyes when the Slytherin is catching snitches or dodging her father’s new wife, it’s at least easy to wash and requires no ribbons or braids. In fact, Laney is rather fond of the strands that constantly sweep across her bitter gaze and provide a sort of security that need not be mentioned. She takes a strange solace in their shield. She will even occasionally let her hair and fringe grow out a bit, but never much further than her neck. In very rare instances—parties in the summer where she prefers anonymity, for example—she will play a role and charm her hair to its youthful state.

The teenager’s boyish hair edges a face that is sometimes overwhelmingly sharp and feminine at the same time. Severe brows, exactly like her father’s (only more well-tended) sit over equally scathing light brown eyes. Laney’s nose, coupled with her taut jaw, provides an exceptionally unique profile. Her nose is wider and less rigid than her father’s, but pointier than her mother’s button nose. From the front or an angle above, her nose lends to a very subtle ‘cuteness’, while from the side, Laney appears sleek and more befitting her personality. To round out her face is a rosy mouth that is swollen and almost naturally downturned in its state of rest. Her puffy lips set on a small mouth frequently give the impression that Laney is pursing her lips when she isn’t. (Though she is obviously no stranger to such an expression). Laney’s best feature is her smile. Big, pearly white teeth, bunched cheeks, crinkled eyes, and a single dimple await anyone who has the patience to make her grin.

Personality Description

Wild at heart, Laney has never had a problem interacting with other people. Though she can sometimes appear a bit more remote, a touch less verbose than some of her housemates upon initial encounter, she is as confidently arrogant and charismatically chatty as any of Salazar’s brood, and will engage in conversation without reservation. This generally becomes evident within five minutes, if Laney finds you interesting enough.

Occasionally, though, her arrogance works in the other direction, and she is prone to brushing past boring or undeserving people, staring callously in silence, murmuring insults in corridors, and ‘forgetting’ customary social behavior. Laney has little patience for drabness, you see. She is lovely to her friends, and a pain to her enemies. She is cold-shouldered to many people in between. In some respects, she can flitter between mellow and carefree, and easily agitated, depending on with whom she’s interacting. This attribute seems to be quite the Slytherin classic.

When it comes to ancestry, despite hitches within her own family and a love for evading rules or monotony, she mostly sees things in black and white, worthy and undeserving, pure and impure. It was simply a trait instilled in her and taught with diligence since before she could properly form sentences, and no amount of rebellion can break the chains that bind her to such a mindset. However, Laney will occasionally allow these lines to blur when she believes something can be achieved, though not with the most loyal of promises or innocent of thoughts.

Tamed in the cage that is formal education, Laney takes to the Quidditch pitch as a means of releasing her aggression. With an exasperating knack for following dodgy paths of all kinds, and for desiring the wild and unattainable, the Slytherin is a natural in the position of Seeker. As much violence and rage as she manages to liberate during practices, Laney also uses the sport to build stamina, discipline, and tactical reasoning. She isn’t wonderfully concerned with regulation in the classic sense, in the way it is applied at Hogwarts, but being in control of herself is important to the girl. A reckless streak often makes this a challenge, and no doubt it will be tricky once Laney graduates and moves on from youth sports. In short, she not the sort of girl one would want to duel afterhours.

Despite a devotion to Quidditch, Laney is not particularly bothered about schedules, schoolwork, and rules. She is clever enough and ambitious enough for her own liking, but has no desire to graduate with a million N.E.W.T.s and to be ushered into the beehive that is the Ministry. That would be too much to her stepmother’s delight, supposing the woman didn’t first manage to lock the girl into an arranged marriage. Laney again asserts her love for fun and want of power over her own path in life. In a grander, bird’s-eye perspective, this is probably as dangerous and potentially disastrous an attitude as it is admirable.

Laney has very little regard for the Ministry in its current state of operation. She tends to think that its many attempts at social egalitarianism are a waste of time and money. The Slytherin is, rather unsurprisingly, very elitist in her views on ancestry, blood purity, and the wizarding aristocracy, and yet, is simultaneously as lazy and independent as a cat. She thinks people on the social progression side of the spectrum need to give it a rest, and people on her own side need to stop being so stuffy and embrace their inherent superiority. Fun is the name of Laney’s game.

Laney is left-handed, and never fails to make it known. She believes, perhaps superstitiously so, that it gives her edge in her chosen position as Seeker. Her grandfather, one of the few people whom she genuinely respects, humorously suggests it also gives her a witchy temper. Laney prefers to think she is a generally unruffled human being.

History

Laney was born the second child of Virginia Islington and Laurent Irving, a pair of Hogwarts-educated Pureblood wizards with impressive family trees. The former hailed from London, while Laurent’s family has long resided in their Derbyshire countryside estate. Mr. Irving’s maternal family, however, and Laney’s grandmother, Emmanuelle, are of French blood. Their marriage occurred as a natural progression to their Hogwarts romance, and seemingly without hitch. They were a love match and, for all social purposes, a good match.

That is, until they began to produce children.

Lane's birth was not a celebrated one; Virgie and Laurent, each heavily pressured by their own parents (whose slightly-waning fortunes and societal influence were badly in need of fresh but pure blood), desired a son. Seeing as their first son, the runt-like dupe known as Clinton, was deemed utterly useless and a disposable failure from the start, having some unspeakable congenital disease that overshadowed any promising magical talent, Laney was, to be blunt, supposed to have been born Laurent the Second. Thus her reluctant introduction to the world.

Still, beggars could not be choosers, and this time around the wary and paranoid parents were careful to place their little Lorraine only into the most experienced of hands. Until the age of two, when her own good health replicated itself in the third child and rightful Irving heir, Basil.

The price for the pink, fat, blooming brat Basil was attention. Constant attention. Even at two, and having never met another person outside of her immediate family and nannies (all adults), Lorraine was certain that no child required more pampering than Basil Irving. He was indisputably the one who received Virgie’s blessing and forgiveness thrice as often as the others, and he always had their father’s eye. Laney might have been her daddy’s daughter, but she was not the bloodline’s benefactor.

Lane’s early childhood was uneventful, as she took a backseat to the two brothers between whom she existed. As much concentration as Basil sucked away from everyone within a fifty meter radius, Clinton stole spotlight for different and more pitiable reasons. Laney came to dislike both of them, though if forced to chose, she would give her heart to her older brother and let her mind and sensibility side with the younger.

Hogwarts brought new and more exciting hurtles. With the prodigy tucked safely at home, Laney distanced herself from her weakling Ravenclaw brother Clinton and took the colors of Salazar Slytherin in stride. She became fast friends with a girl by the name of Malynda Drake, who seemed to share many a personality traits and a love for rebellion.

In the summer between Laney’s second and third year, her mother fell ill and died a relatively quick and painless death, but it was undoubtedly a blow to the family. For some reason, Laurent took out the tragedy on Clinton, whose own shortcomings seemed contagious, however illogical a conclusion that was. The older boy had never been treated worse, and Basil, on the brink of his first year, had never been more protected or pampered. Even the smallest child felt a ray of sympathy for the eldest, and there was a brief moment of solidarity between the boys, however subtle, in the weeks following their mother’s death. Laney became more withdrawn and reserved during this time, seeking solace only in her closest friends, spending time away from the family home, and accepting her father’s excess, possibly guilt-driven nurture with a somber silence.

The rebellion really began to spread its wings in third year, and though Basil was sorted into Slytherin like any good Irving child, Laney remained as detached as usual, civil but distant, and always with regard for his future position as heir.

As she herself was not heir, Lorraine decided that Hogwarts shouldn’t go to waste, and made the most of it playing Quidditch, wreaking havoc, and doing everything but perpetually hitting the books. She glided by in most classes with decent but not wonderful marks, and her father seemed unbothered. In fact, following Virginia’s death, he arguably treated his daughter with more affection than any of the children. Especially, or perhaps until (Laney is still unsure which it is, exactly), the announcement of a new member of the family.

Olive became the new Lady Irving even before Laney began her fourth year and joined Slytherin’s Quidditch team as seeker. That summer was spent playing many one-on-one, bludger-heavy matches with her best friend and Beather extraordinaire, Malynda. To call Olive insufferable would be the biggest understatement in Wizarding World history.

Now on the brink of graduation, Laney is counting down the days to her exit of both Hogwarts and her father’s house. She speaks to Clinton very little; her brother made his departure immediately following his own graduation, and has been rather estranged from their father and his good graces ever since (not that he had them in the first place). Laney isn’t sure what she wants to do after she sits her N.E.W.T.’s, but she knows her ambition will not falter. She refuses to seek a classically boring career, and has plans to room with partner in crime, Miss Drake.


How Do You Fit Into Your House?
There is certainly no better house for Lorraine. She is cunning to a reckless degree, will stop at nothing to fulfill her desires, and her morality is shaky at best. Like her parents before her, she is a natural for the house of Slytherin.

Sum up your character in one paragraph.
Laney is a both a characteristic Slytherin and a feisty rebel. She has a streak of arrogance and a certain love for things considered dangerous or taboo. This juxtaposition makes her a potential terror, but it also provides plenty of excitement in her life. On the verge of a new chapter as a Hogwarts graduate, Laney is looking forward to discovering and fulfilling new ambitions.

[Character Name:] Lorraine “Laney” Irving
[Previous Position:] Slytherin student, Slytherin Seeker
[Position Applying For:] Seeker for Montrose Magpies
[Link to Accepted Biography:] here

[Why have you chosen to change careers?:] Laney has always been an athletic girl, willing to let loose her ambition and aggression on a broom. Defying the social norms of her aristocratic family, in particular her prissy step-mother, she has taken to the role of athlete like a wizard to his first wand. Playing Seeker for the Hogwarts Slytherin team, under the captaincy of her best friend Malynda Drake, Laney honed her skills and helped win the most recent House Quidditch Cup.

What is your job description?
How do you go about your job?
How did you get your current job?
How does your past and abilities justify your current position?:

Laney has been training as a reserve for another, more local professional team for a while now, in between looking for a stable parttime job. While initially it seemed just a good way to waste her summer, she has become more serious about playing professional quidditch. Her ambitions-- as well as her interest in certain players who shall go unnamed-- lead her to seek out the Magpies coach and join them for training. As a Seeker, she possesses that sort of skill that people either have or don’t have, and thus gets away with being on the younger side for a professional player.

Laney rises earlier than she’d like, begins training with a good job, and then starts on broom exercises and team “bonding” exercises. After a brief lunch, she begins personal training by chasing mock snitches and challenging herself with other hand-eye coordination techniques. She begrudges authority, but tries to keep this under control as she still a novice to the team. Sometimes, however, her stubborn streak gets ahead of her and Laney finds herself watching practices from the sidelines or else doing penalty rounds well into the evening.

Laney is still debating also taking on a part-time night job, as the major games of the season have not arrived and she currently earns little in the form of advances. She is so new to the team that she has not yet been asked to ink her name to an official, extended contract for multiple seasons. She is hoping (but also somehow dreading) the day will come soon.

Basic Statistics
Name: Lorraine Emmanuelle Irving, goes by Laney or sometimes simply Lane
Age/Date of Birth: 22nd October 1989
Nationality: English
Socioeconomic Level as a child: Economically upperclass, aristocratic in name
Socioeconomic Level as an adult: Upperclass
Hometown: Derbyshire, England
Current Residence: London, England - Laney's Flat
Occupation: Professional Quidditch Player, Seeker for the Montrose Magpies
Income: contract-based and generous
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Birth order: Second child of three, first and only girl. Middle child of three.
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Physical Characteristics
Height: 5'7.5" or 5'8" feet tall, approx. 1.73 meters
Weight: 110 to 115 lbs., approx. 52.2 kg or 8 stone and 3 pounds
Race: Caucasian (English and French), possibly some Mediterranean roots
Eye Color: Light brown
Hair Color: Dark brown
Glasses or contact lenses? No. Laney has very good eyesight, which aids her in her Seeking abilities.
Skin color: Light olive. Paler in the winter months.
Shape of Face: Severely oval.
Distinguishing features: Sharp cheekbones, high brow, almond-shaped eyes, one dimple when she smiles, sultry lips, boyish grace but a feminine profile, intimidating facade.
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Habits: Laney is a chain-smoker with an admitted oral fixation.
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