About You, the Writer:
We will never ask any member to disclose any personal information.
Your Nickname: (A moniker to identify you, the writer.
Can be your first name or a nickname.) Gem
Have you read and do you agree to the Code of Conduct & Guidelines?: Yes
How did you find us and decide to write with us? Through SR
If you have written other characters here, list them all: This is my first charrie on this site.

Full Character Name: Arianna Trenford
Character Birthday & Age: 21st December 1981, age 26
City & Country of Birth: Wiltshire, England
Pureblood, Halfblood or Muggleborn?: Pureblood
Alma Mater: Ravenclaw, Hogwarts
Occupation Con - artist/thief.  Musician - performs the piano at parties/small private funtions.

Type of Criminal: Con -artist/thief

Allegiances / Loyalties / Political Faction:  Arianna's principle allegiance now is to herself. She has no dependents, no-one else to look out for.  She could be described as anti-ministry blaming the entire system for the failures which led to her mothers demise. Also anti-capitalist, preferring to target the wealthy and more ruthless members of wizarding society for her schemes and cons.  

Previous Convictions or Crimes?:  
If yes, please explain.

No convictions as of yet, quite a few close shaves.

Crimes

1.   December 2000 – Theft of eight hundred galleons from the Dunstone company. Crime reported, company clerk Simeon Jones arrested and charged with the offence.
2.   September 2002 – Assisted in the well publicized ‘Merlin’s hat’ heist, involved in switching the original painting for a fake the day before the annual Timlettel auction in Switzerland. Crime reported by the purchaser of the painting, seller Samuel Timmins was arrested and charged with fraud, and ordered to refund the cost of the painting plus court charges, totalling four thousand galleons and fifty four sickles. The original painting was never recovered.
3.   June 2006 – Involved in the Brandon con, a crime targeting Robert Brandon, an ex auror. Nicholas Tinvetal, her fellow conspirator, was arrested during the final stages.
4.   Other small, insignificant thefts/ breaking and entering.

What crimes might you commit in the future?  Discuss all possible:
Other con’s, probably with support from others, preferring to focus on wealthy business men/women with dubious scruples but beneficent appearances. Potentially could attempt to target ministry workers, who she holds in great contempt, especially those with a connection to her mother's case. Could possibly be involved with a partnership for certain crimes or be drawn into a group, particularly a group with an anti-ministry focus. Would be easy to manipulate into targeting ministry workers with the right button press.

Raised with some semblence of a moral background, if a little distorted but happy to steal, con, bribe, blackmail if justifiable in the name of some sort of cause. She would never steal from someone who couldn't afford to lose some capital, or who didn't (in her opinion) deserve it. Could potentially use dark arts/ cause injury in self defence. Could potentially use spells ie memory modification against wizards/muggles to protect her cover/lifestyle.  

Considering her targets, she could potentially upset those in the criminal world as well as the ministry.


Are you currently under pursuit by the Ministry of Magic?: Two descriptions have been sent out. A 5ft 6 young women called Colleen Ingleton with short red hair and a pale complexion and a 5ft 4 middle aged woman called Susan Dermot, with pale blonde bobbed hair with brown eyes. No confirmed sightings have been reported.

Wand Description: 7 ½ inches, willow, unicorn hair, springy. Rather polished in appearance though with a deep scratch on the handle from a well directed curse.

Physical Description: Tall, 5ft 10, and slender. Prefers to leave her hair colour black, long with a slight wave and her eyes are normally a pale grey/blue.  Her skin tone is pale, with a tendency to burn at even the barest hint of the sun. A small scar is only faintly visable just under her right eye. An injury she will often explain away as various exciting encounters, actually caused by an oversized book falling from a very tall bookcase when she was aged nine. She also has a small strawberry coloured birth mark behind her left ear.  

When not at work, she favours clothes of a darker colour, preferring to fade into the background, suitably tailored but hardly the cutting edge of fashion.

Blessed with the gift of metamorphagus she has the added benefit of the ability to alter her appearance at will, with various degrees of difficulty depending on what she is altering, a gift she frequently uses in her current line of work.

Personality Description:

Arianna is known for her ability to remain cool under pressure and logical in her approach. She is rarely seen to lose her temper, except if she is ever outwitted as she prides her self on her intelligence.

Arianna has a dark sense of humour with a tendency towards sarcasm. She has a few friends and can sometimes be rather unapproachable to those she doesnt know, unless on a con on which she is always hiding behind another persona. She has learnt the hard way that caring for people invariably means that you get hurt and so she avoids such connections wherever possible. Some people have slipped through the barriers, but not all of those are aware of her current occupation. She is still in contact with some of her mothers old friends.

She enjoys music, preferring to play the piano, one of the positives her strict education at home brought her, and reading. As she spends rather a lot of time on her own, they are both ideal solitary pursuits.  

She does hold some semblence of moral code, if somewhat confused by past events. Her mother, who she held in the greatest esteem and loved, was rennounced by the wizarding public as evil and sentenced. Her father, who she despised, was thought of by others as a decent man of great standing and a high moral conduct. She is very aware of the fickleness of public approval and therefore never seeks to gain it, though that does not mean that she is not jealous of the popular at times. This also means, however, that she rarely trusts the opinion of anyone else, unless that of an expert she has sought out or one of the trusted few in her circle. She always believes she is right. When weighing up others, though she will take into account the evidence avaliable, she acts judge and jury and makes sometimes catastrophic decicions accordingly. There is a sort of arrogance in her certainty of her own beliefs and talents.

She is, however, fiercely loyal and generous to those deserving of it. There is potential for her to love, though her trust takes a long time to be earned.  

History:

The Trenford family were once regarded as one of the great, wealthy wizarding families. Though, even before Arianna was born, these fortunes had long been squandered. Arianna's mother, Maria Trenford, had started her adulthood with a great name but very little means, and, luckily, enough outstanding N.E.W.T’s under her belt to have a promising chance to find her own place in greatness.

Maria was accepted into the Department of Mysteries not long after her graduation, tipped for great things within the ministry, with a talent for transfiguration in particular.  She met, and fell in love, with an astute businessman of the age, Maxwell Dunstone and, after a very short engagement, married him in the late spring of 1981. Arianna arrived just seven months later.

Arianna's childhood was mostly happy, though at times rather lonely. She had all the material things she could have possibly wished for, but seldom any of the attention that she constantly craved. Her father barely featured in her early years. She adored her mother, but Maria's work and her place at Maxwell's side at the best society dinners and parties nibbled away at the precious hours they spent together until there was very little left. Spending much of her time between the shelves, reading, in the library, hidden away from a squat, nasty little governess with a sharp tongue and very limited imagination, it was not until she started at Hogwarts in 1993  that she found the true joys, and occasional woes,  of company of other children. A little overwhelmed at first, she withdrew into herself for the beginning few months, but soon came to make a close knit group of friends, finally beginning to gain confidence and realise her true potential.

But, in 1997, in the midst of the war that already threw so much into turmoil, Arianna's own personal world fell apart. Maria was arrested as a spy, accused of leaking information to death eater suspects. She was convicted and sentenced to ten years imprisonment, much to the embarrassment of her husband, who began divorce proceedings on the day of her arrest, never once questioning the truth of the evidence presented.

Maxwell, worried about the affect of her mother's dangerous influence and that of some of the students and staff at her school, removed his daughter from Hogwarts, the home that she had come to love. Arianna found herself trapped within the manor house walls, with a man that she neither knew nor liked, schooled for hours a day on the most mundane of subjects, the glory of the economy and the evils of the world and her mother in particular. She raged against it at first and then settled once more on withdrawing away within the own walls of her mind, appearing meek and attentive while plotting her escape from her gloomy prison. She tried to escape twice, and twice was found and returned. Her anger at her father, for abandoning her mother and suffocating her, grew each day.

In 1999, when Arianna was seventeen and of age, she left home. Her father disowned her, six months later the contents of the home vault of the Maxwell Dunstone was emptied. A former clerk with a grievance named Simeon Jones was arrested shortly after, a sum of fifty marked galleons found at his home address, though he always protested his innocence, insisting that the gold had been planted at his house. The remaining money was never discovered.  

From that moment on, Arianna made her own way in the world. She lived modestly, never staying long in any one place. It was by luck that when living in London she met up with a Nicholas Tinvetal, a formidable con-artist with a fearsome reputation....whether good or bad luck and for who could be debated.  He recognised natural talent and potential, she recognised his experience and guile. For a while, they made an excellent team, until a former associate turned snitch sold Nicholas over to the law enforcement in 2006. He is currently serving time in Askaban for fraud and embezzlement, due for release later this year.

For the last two years, Arianna has restricted herself to much smaller criminal activities, merely to suplement her income and supported her means by providing entertainment at small parties etc with her piano playing.  

As for Arianna's mother, in Nov 2003 new evidence was unearthed and Maria's case was revisted. Finally, in Jan 2004, her conviction was overturned but it was a little too late for Maria. She died in Askaban, three weeks before her release could be formalised.

Writing Sample:
Show your character in a scene that illustrates the best and worst aspects
of their personality. Include action, dialog and thought.

Arianna stepped into the darkened room, her eyes squinting a little in the half light until her vision adapted. A shadow outline of a squat little man moved at the back of the workshop.

“About time. Here, look at this.” The shadow said, beckoning her over towards a pile of photos developing on the side.

Ari looked down, the images becoming cleared in bluish glow of the lamps.

“Interesting. All from the same entrance?” She asked him, frowning slightly as she studied the figures moving with the outlined frame, sifting through to the next photograph, the photo of a group of men sitting together round a table, arms waving as if in the middle of a heated argument. Her frown melted away, her eyes sparkling. They had him.

She slipped one hand into her inside her robe, the slight jingle of coins as she pulled a small bag from her pocket.

“A quarter now as promised, the rest on safe delivery.” She told him coolly, allowing just the barest flicker of a smile to cross her lips as she slipped the photo’s into her bag.

“Good work Mason.”

Mason shrugged. He was the best, he already knew it.  

    

Sum up your character in one paragraph:

Cool, collected and intelligent, with a tendency to be reserved and/or sarcastic unless working a con. Considered attractive by some, educated and a metamorphagus, she uses all these attributes to her advantage whenever she can.  

Character Name: Arianna Trenford
List your other characters, if applicable:
Please provide a link to your Application:   Bio
Age: 26

Special Ability: Metamorphmagi

When did your character master this ability?  How long have they had it?: She was born with the ability but first discovered it when she was eight. It has taken her a long time to master its control and a lot of practice, often with mirror feedback but now she can change her appearance with only a moderate amount of concentration and sustain it for hours without too much of a problem. She still has difficulty sustained a change when injured or in pain, though this is slowly improving.

How did they learn or hone this ability?: As above

Describe how the Special Ability influences their life.  What do they use it for?: She has come to somewhat rely on this ability to assist with her cons in addition to huge amounts of background work, when taking over a different identity. It has, so far, been the main reason she has escaped detection for so long...though she could be getting a little overconfident.

Write a description of what happens when your character is exhibiting this Special Ability:
With a little concentration, Arianna can change her hair colour, nose shape, height, facial features at her will. Bigger changes such as height take more concentration and energy to sustain, smaller changes such as nose shape can be done almost instantanously and held for long durations.

2008

April 19th, Saturday, am ; Arianna finds more than she bargained for in Obscurus book store, Diagon, in the form of Dr Harry Spindler: Home from Home  

April 21st, Monday, am ; Just one more spectator at: The release of Theodora Kingstreet Though the ministry courtroom makes Arianna re-look at her own past.

April 23rd, Wednesday, am ; Arianna auditions for a pianist position at the Signature club in Hogsmeade, but will she be good enough for Finnley Grosvenor? : Signature Mark