~ Accepted : Mai ~About You, the Writer:We will never ask any member to disclose any personal information.Your Nickname: Anica
Have you read and do you agree to the Code of Conduct?:Yepp
How did you find us and decide to write with us?I was forced
nah, just been here all along, really
If you have written other characters here, list them all:Fiona Lloyd Marren
Full Character Name:Agnes Estelle Aalto- Smith
Character Birthday & Age: 3rd August 1982, 6:07 pm / 26 years old
City & Country of Birth:Oulo, Northern Ostrobothnia, Finland
Pureblood, Halfblood or Muggleborn?: Muggleborn
Alma Mater: Teuvo Pakkala School for Girls (2000)
Job:Mechanical Engineer
Wand:7 ¾, Birch, Phoenix Feather. The wand is currently in the possession of the Ministry of Magic until Agnes decides to take the necessary exams to gain it back.
Physical Description: The first thing one notices when Agnes enters the room is her with only 5’1.8” rather tiny and thin body. She likes to do sports and forgets to eat whenever her life becomes stressful, which means that at times she has to control her weight to ensure it stays on a healthy level. Agnes has dark brown eyes and clear facial features with a full mouth. Her hair has a rich, black colour and curls its way all the way down to her waist.
Despite having worked in a man’s world most of her life, one rarely sees her without a dress, fashion dominating her life. Since her employment at the MoM, Stella has been experimenting with Wizarding fashion, yet has difficulties to adjust.
Personality Description:Her friends and co-workers often get the impression that Agnes does things merely along the way, somehow. She’s hard working and ambitious, but bringing with her an intense calmness and patience, everything she does looks stress free and relaxed. Her uncomplicated manner makes her easy to work with and a good addition to any team.
Working in a men’s world never bothered her and she doesn’t make a big deal out of it. She is good at what she does and unlike some of her male colleagues, Agnes doesn’t bitch but does bite when you try to get at her.
Agnes can not stand problems and hurdles at all, which is why she tries to tackle everything that comes up straight away and to adapt to new surroundings as quickly as possible. She pushes things both at work and at home that don't move fast enough for her, which can be unbearable at times because she sticks to her guns like a maniac.
In her free time Agnes loves to meet up with friends, visit her family or educate herself, earn some new skills. Being very reliable, honest and serious, her friends and acquaintances feel comfortable to talk to her just about everything that comes to their mind, while Agnes is more of a listener than a speaker.
It is hard to find out stuff about her, just as hard as annoying her or even getting her angry. She never really seems to mind- or care even, one can never really tell.
In terms of magic, Agnes might occasionally be a bit more difficult than she has to be. Being an engineer, Agnes likes to know how and why things work and doesn't want to just accept that sometimes it's just magic. It used to drive her teachers at Hogwarts crazy and will probably get on the nerves of whoever tries to show her something now (
brooms don't just fly,
these things don't exist ). She wants to learn how to do magic, but it will take a lot for her to just accept that things are the way they are and can not be explained with a formulary.
History:Matti Aalto left his home country in the early 1960’s to start a new life as a chef in London, England, he didn’t expect to find love so quickly.
But there Liouba Smith had been, sitting at the reception of his dentist with only 23 years of life experience, asking what his troubles were.
By 1982, when Agnes Estelle was born, Liouba Smith and Matti Aalto had already been married for 18 years and were the proud owners of a Scandinavian restaurant in Plymouth, England as well proud parents of three Boys and one girl: Hannes Charles, age 9; Niko James, age 7; Fredrik Jonathan, age 6 and Maarit Christine, age 4. Although they lived and grew up in England, all of the kids were born in their father’s home country and hold Finnish passports. Matti had no desire to ever return to Finland, but felt so strong for its language and traditions that he tried to get those across to his children as much as possible. The family visited Oulo at least four times a year and by the time they were old enough, Agnes, Maarit and Fredrik spent most of their summer school holidays at her grandma’s together.
Unlike her siblings, Agnes becomes closely attached to her grandmother and she quickly becomes the only person to be able to find access to the child’s feelings and thoughts. Lumia is also the first person to notice that Agnes has a special gift, something beyond what her mother very quickly puts off as an extreme naughtiness (e.g. Hannes’ mysteriously vanished clothes after he annoyed “the pants off” little Agnes).
Lumia dies on a heart attack in Spring 1990, not long before Agnes’ 9th birthday. And with the loss of the one person who had a good connection on the girl, Agnes shut up.
What had never been a very outgoing girl in the first place, turned into something very small and quiet, somewhere in the corner of the playground, doing her own thing. Her grades were still as outstanding as before if not better, just her presence vanished a little more with each passing day. The boys of her class quickly learned that Agnes didn’t snitch when they bullied her and almost thought to have found a new toy, when they had to realize that bullying a girl with three older brothers wasn’t such a good idea. Not to mention the weird and unexplainable things happening whenever they went too far and Agnes freaked out.
Those things were one reason why, when the letter from Hogwarts arrived on her 11th birthday, everyone thought it was a weird joke. Not even the witch and supposed Hogwarts professor bringing the letter could convince them. Even if there hadn’t been a profound mistrust, Liouba’s and Matti’s beliefs and principles had never left any room for something like magic. The so-called witch was sent away, the invitation to visit the school rejected.
Agnes herself had left the room way before that, anyway, and didn’t even uttered an opinion. Of course, she had no idea why those strange things happened to her on occasion, but growing up in her parents’ house, magic had never been a topic for her either. Unless told about in fairytales.
That was before Agnes got into a fight with boys from school and one of the boys turned blue, while the other simply vanished.
Her parents despair over their daughter’s reassurance that she didn’t even touch them -apart from those one or two punches maybe- and that it really had been “like magic” and that she swore to God she had nothing to do with it. It didn’t take long for that witch-professor-person to return to the Aalto-Smith household and out of pure helplessness, Agnes is sent to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, despite the doubts.
The boy was found in a small town in the middle of Canada three days later. 15 years later, he still turns around and runs whenever he catches sight of her.
Agnes Estelle is sorted into the Ravenclaw house on 1st September 1993.
Funny enough, though, life doesn’t change much for the young girl. She takes in everything that is happening around and adapts as easily to the situation as these skills came naturally to her. The lessons are very different from everything she has ever seen and heard and a healthy ambition grew within her. Agnes had little to no social skills and spent most of her time studying or hanging around with boys, but stayed on top of most of her classes. She especially enjoyed Arithmancy, even learned ahead of what they did in class, and built the cornerstone for her future career.
The years pass by and even Matti gets used to owls on his kitchen sink and stories about the Hogwarts Quidditch.
But when rumours about a lunatic wizard Hitler-wannabe who kill people with a Muggle background hit Plymouth, Agnes is being pulled out of school faster than anyone could have seen it coming. She leaves Hogwarts in April 1996 and doesn’t even finish her 3rd year, just to be signed into a public school for girls – in Oulo, Finland of all things. And again, Agnes meets this sudden change with an open mind and no grumbling.
The public Muggle school quickly bores her to near death, but to try and do the best out of her new start, Agnes throws herself into the mess of Finnish English lessons that don’t make sense to her, Maths teachers that know how to challenge her every day again and making new friends. The first year the Brit falls way behind anyone else- The for her odd collection of subjects and the language keeping her progress slow. Agnes repeats year 3 and got to enjoy extra tutorials in the afternoons when she doesn’t have class or extracurricular activities.
Eventually, in year 5, she got her things sorted and gained her free time back, which she immediately used to socialize. Agnes only had a hand full of selected friends, but the years and the dark winters strengthened the friendships of these girls so intensely that 10 years on they are still very close. Apart from that tiny incident in November 1998, where a deputy of the British Ministry of Magic appeared on her door step and re-offered her to finish her magical education and she kindly declined and gave her wand into the hands of the ministry, the magic world moves further and further away from Agnes, until it seems like a distant dream far from reality.
After her graduation in 2001, Agnes started studying Mechanical Engineering at the University of Technology Helsinki. Right from the beginning the subject turned out to be perfect for the 19-year-old. Agnes enjoyed life as a student a lot and usually drinks half her brain cells away on weekends only to return to a 12-hour-per-day learning marathon during the week.
However, being only reasonably ambitious, she left university in 2004 after gaining only her BSc when a British company offered her a job at a project in Beijing.
As she had always done in life, she took this job and threw herself into the Beijing hustle with open arms and has never come to regret her decision.
In the end of 2005, the company relocates Agnes and her team to London and for the first time in 10 years the young woman stays longer than two weeks in her home country. With things at work getting a lot more relaxed, the young engineer applies at UCL to gain her Master’s degree and add some Management skills to pep up her CV.
The fast flow of life in London so very contrary to what she was used to from home and school picks Agnes up quickly and easily.
After a nasty break-up after almost three years of happiness, the young woman suddenly wakes up and notice its already 2008. Her Ex James and Agnes sell their townhouse in Notting Hill and the Engineer moves into an apartment in the quieter parts of Soho. Her last months of university (aka late nights and long Saturdays of learning and exam stress between business meetings and night clubbing) rush past making way for an awful lot of change.
One night in early February 2008, Agnes gets mocked on her way home and as if they had always been there waiting for a chance to come out after years of hiding, her unfocused magical skills set in.
She finds herself on the floor, wet through but otherwise unharmed when her stolen items come flying around the corner, landing on the floor in front of her.
Confused and shocked Agnes goes home not talking about this coincident to anyone. It takes her a couple of days to get over the fears that came with the realization of the happenings, yet one thing she could not get over even after adding a huge can of pepper spray to the many pieces in her handbag.
The unexpected reappearance of her magical skills (or rather, instincts) bothered her to no end. Agnes has not thought of Hogwarts and this world that existed beside this one in almost 10 years. Wasn’t there this shopping
Street close by, what was is called… D-something Alley?
The former Ravenclaw buys a map of London and starts to search the streets systematically, running past the Leaky Cauldron at least twice. It was her mother who, on a short visit in late April remembered the shabby old pub and its function.
Since then, Agnes Estelle has been on a crazy trip back into her past. She is re- discovering a world she was supposed to belong to, at some point or other in her life, and keeps wondering whether she wants to go back to this or not. Will she get her wand back, develop her skills and dive into strange world where all those rules and ideas of things that are basic for her life and job lie somewhere beyond the relevant?
What is your occupation? How do you go about it?
How did you get your current occupation?
How does your past and abilities justify your current skills?:Agnes is a very eager and hard working Mechanical Engineer at a large British energy company. She has been with them since she finished her BSc and during her Master’s program at the University College London (for about 4 years), always finding support und even getting promoted last year. Her Co-workers describe her as very easy to work with and a good Team worker, who always knows how to relieve stress.
It is hard to tell why she chose to become an Engineer, she just figured it would be something she would be good at and Agnes has never been seen with any sparkle of regret since she made her decision.
Writing Sample:Agnes starred at the notes that flew around landing on desk or flying off to other departments and tried to focus on the pile of sheets in front of her instead of the people around her. Wizards, all of them.
Which courses do you want to take and why?She rolled with her eyes, scanning the list of evening courses the Ministry offered for the magically retarded.
Effective Magical Cleaning for Housewives, Mermish for Beginners, Apparating made easy,… That was ridiculously confusing. The woman in the department for Magical Education had to take some basic Charms lessons and that learning to apparate should be helpful, but that all other classes were optional. If one couldn’t remember anything, though, not taking other classes might make her life in the wizarding world even more difficult than it already was for Agnes.
She scanned the watch around her wrist, painfully aware of the shut down mobile phone in her jeans pocket. Her first meeting was in half an hour and her partner had been frantic about their presentation, turning off the phone had been the only way to free herself of his constant calls.
If things worked out the way they should, though, she’d be out of the office at five and could stop by Diagon Alley to get some parchment and a quill and attend the six o’clock Potions class.
Agnes wondered what has gotten into her to voluntarily go to evening classes to learn magic of all things. It had nothing to do with her, with engineering and reasoning or the real world, and yet it stuck to her and she couldn’t get it of her past and skills.
“For how long will I have to attend the classes?”
The old witch scanned her Muggle clothes yet again before answering. “That depends how much you forgot, never knew and how slow you are.”
Agnes smiled sceptically. “Right. Great. Well, then, I guess I’ll start with Charms, Apparating and potions, maybe, and I’ll come back in a couple of weeks if I need more time if that’s alright?”
It sounded more like a bad dream and something she’d actually do. She wondered how that might look on her CV “entitled to apparate” or “basic knowledge of potions”. Her boss would wet himself, probably.
Sum up your character in one paragraph:Agnes is ambitious and hard working, always trying to be on top of things. She likes to hang out with friends, is very sociable and easy-going and quite pleasant to have around.
It is very hard to get her angry as she doesn’t really mind anything, she just takes it all in and deals with things as best as she can. Not a girl that talks much, it is very hard to get really personal information out of her, but if you do get her to talk or need an opinion, she will be always be honest.
Agnes Estelle Aalto-Smith, Muggle Liaison Supervisor, Muggle Affairs Office