Accepted! ~Elle

About You, the Writer:
We will never ask any member to disclose any personal information.
Your Nickname: Shana
Have you read and do you agree to the Code of Conduct?: Yeah
How did you find us and decide to write with us? Searched the internet, former member of HM (Juniper Slade)
If you have written other characters here, list them all: Serenity Lee Thornton, Bellatrix Dark

Full Character Name: Shannon Illythe Thornton
Character Birthday & Age: February 4th, 1956; 54 years old
City & Country of Birth: Lancaster, England
Pureblood, Halfblood or Muggleborn?: Pure-blood
Alma Mater: Hufflepuff
Job: Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office [Staff, not Head]

Wand: Spruce wood, Unicorn Tail, 8 inches, supple with a bent shaft. There is an interesting design of water trailing along the handle up to the base of the bent area of the shaft. At the end of the handle is copperwork that holds an Amethyst slab in place.

The wand looks similar to this: Link

Physical Description:  Shannon is a petite woman who well-developed in to her adulthood while also retaining some youthful traits such as smooth skin, an energetic light in her eyes, and her extremely sweet smile that has charmed her husband for years on end. She has very dark brown, almost black hair that falls in ringlets (with a tad help of magic for keeping them in place) down to her waist. Her skin has a very fair complexion reffered to as "ivory" and her eyes are hazel, though they mostly remain green.

For a woman who has aged remarkably and entranced quite a few men in her younger years, Shannon tends to have a bold mannerism that is shown through the way she walks and holds herself. Full of confidence (although not arrogant or snobby), she is hardly what most pure-blooded wizards and witches call "refined" for some of her aristocratic stature; as in, she doesn't show at all that she is a lady.

Her outfits include cheerful sundresses or shorts (she hates winter and being confined to long sleeves and extra layers to keep herself from feeling cold), eccentric cocktail dresses, and the most eye-capturing gowns and elegant dresses that her mother had left her. Albeit she has no money to be an aristocrat, her pure bloodline is probably the only thing that keeps other pure-bloods from casting her out completely--although, she already borders "toleration" because of her sharp tongue and love for Muggles and their cultures.

Link 1

Personality Description:  Energetic, naive, and bold are the strongest traits of this charming witch who has a child-like innocence that keeps her youthful at heart. She aims to please her husband, does her best to keep her family close, and can match both wits and reflexes against the darkest witches or wizards. Of course, her speciality doesn't lie in dueling because, although she is protective and has enough nerve to take on the worst enemies, she also lacks the hot-headed temper she once had--at least, towards danger, that is. Other than this, people describe her as crazy, fun, and basically a teenager at heart who knows who she is and what she wants.

Shannon doesn't have a whole lot of patience and she's very bad at allowing her pride to go admit not when she's wrong, but that she's not as good as she expects herself to be; oblivious and dense are two more traits that she has not been able to change over the course of her years. Confidence is one thing she has gained through experience during her years of development and it's this confidence that keeps her going through all sorts of trials--except for the trial of facing herself.

Perhaps her worst fear is that after all she's been through, after all that trying to change, she's still not good enough. It's been proven many times that when faced with adversity, Shannon can conquer anything but when faced with her true heart, she becomes a coward. Despite her confidence, she disappoints herself and tries to run away when faced with the fact that she doesn't meet her expectations which her family and co-workers often tell her are set too high. Therefore, she puts herself through the worst tests in order to prove to everyone that she can do things; unfortunately, she never manages to prove it to herself. Nothing she does is good enough for her reflection and therefore, she is insecure and disappoints herself.

Her naivity merges with her expectations which is almost as bad. The woman understands that people aren't perfect, make mistakes, and can't do everything, but her values set extremely high standards for those around her. Friends, for example, are not friends if they cheat or betray her (i.e. taking advantage of her, treating her like a doormat, purposefully trying to hurt her emotionally in some way like flirting with her husband or trying to get her sacked) while a husband must be loyal, supportive, share his attention equally among herself, himself, and the kids, and never intentionally bring harm to her. Thankfully, her husband met her expectations and "passed her test" with flying colors.

History:  Shannon was born a pure-blood to a wealthy wizard named Sir Reginald Leventhorpe and his frail yet astoundingly kind wife Morgana Grimm in Lancaster, England. Her mother gave her lots of love and attention and was the best mother in the world for Shannon. Since they were rich, she could buy her lots of dresses and outfits that Shannon picked out herself; the child didn't act spoiled at all. Her mother had inherited her small fortune and the Grimm Manor in Devonshire shortly after her mother passed away only a year after she married, but Morgana lived in her husband's manor as he expected. It was this very inheritance from the Grimm family that brought trouble in to Morgana's life.

At the age of four, Shannon crept in to her mother's library to find out more about her family heritage since she never knew her grandmother and heard wonderful stories about her heroic deeds. She didn't realize that the black, untitled book that she had chosen was, in some way, cursed until she sat down to open it. What normally would have been blank to anyone of the Grimm bloodline save for a select few was filled with odd writing and diagrams, scribbles even as footnotes and sidenotes, and foreign symbols. The words "Zeleni thio venaliadila konloeldiay" wrote themselves on a blank page that she flipped to and Shannon passed out, muttering in the language and drooling.

It was her mother's scream that pierced the night which woke Sir Reginald from his sleep. His wife was frantic and going out of her mind as she tried to snap her daughter out of it. Sir Reginald immediately yanked the child up, took her to St. Mungo's via Floo Powder with his wife trailing behind in tears, and admitted his daughter to the Fourth Floor: Spell Damage. He believed his daughter to be incurable and when the nurses told him this was true, he only agreed and dismissed himself promptly. Morgana, who had not yet bore him a son, was livid with the man for being so cold towards his daugther. Days later, she kidnapped her daughter from the ward and took the first ride to Africa where she found herself a famous Witch Doctor. It was the Witch Doctor who brought Shannon from her broken mental state although she could not fully cure her.

When they returned to Lancaster, Sir Reginald shrewdly demanded to know everything and became distant once Morgana chewed him out for not helping his daughter the way she had. The man was furious that his daughter had recovered to a somewhat normal state and was angered further still by the girl's questioning as to where he was during her brief vegetable state. For the next several years, the girl could not remember what had happened while she was in her trance; she muttered to herself, scribbled strange symbols, words, and diagrams everywhere, and talked to a person that wasn't there who freely gave her knowledge on almost everything she was curious about (and she was very curious about a lot of things). Sir Reginald believed his daughter to be mad and once again tried to send her away, but her mother wouldn't hear of it and threatened to expose his illegal business with Borgin and Burke's if he said another word about it. The man was outraged and, in order to keep business going, he obeyed.

Shortly after the tension in the house began, Shannon received her Hogwarts letter. Her mother bought her daughter the best of everything along with some extra trinkets just so that her daughter wouldn't be missing anything useful. At long last, Sir Reginald Leventhorpe took his leave the moment he heard that his daughter was sorted into Hufflepuff instead of Ravenclaw. The man was later attacked by a Werewolf and killed in Shannon's second year (she read it in the Daily Prophet.) While Morgana did indeed inherit the Leventhorpe fortune, a secret mistress had inherited his castle for her son's use. To the Notary's knowledge, Sir Reginald himself did not sire the mistress's son, but he fathered him the way he should have fathered Shannon. All the while, Shannon was in school and learned nothing of this; her mother lied to her saying that they were going to move to the Grimm Manor in Devonshire in order to avoid the memories of Sir Reginald. The whole time, Shannon was pondering, "What memories?"

Shannon's mother remarried another pure-blood named Mordrid Savage. He treated them both like queens while he whittled away at the Leventhorpe fortune. By the time the inherited fortune was completely squandered by Mordrid, Shannon was in her fourth year at Hogwarts. She received a letter in November and went home immediately for the Christmas Holidays to watch her mother pass away. Mordrid was now her only guardian and he reluctantly was forced to stay by his own grandparents who adored Shannon deeply. The man knew nothing of raising children and had no intention of doing so when he married Morgana, but somehow, he and Shannon managed to get through her graduation at Hogwarts while he toyed around secretly in the black market to keep their finances up.

When at last Shannon graduated and came of age, she was to inherit her entire Leventhorpe family's fortune but unfortunately, the money itself had been squandered and many invaluable wizarding artifacts had to be auctioned off in order to pay off Mordrid's debts he had collected between the last cent of the fortune and the present day. There were a few things from the Grimm family that she did inherit: the Grimm Manor in Devonshire, a library full of books, about fourteen ancient objects that were significant to the Grimm bloodline, and plenty of archives. Although she bore her step-father no actual hatred, she said her good-byes and ventured forth into the Muggle world to get enough money to stand on her own two feet. Her adventures took her to the United States where she worked as a waitress in a café for a year. Here, during some trouble with passing drunks, she met a man named Alastair Thornton. His size scared the hell out of her attackers, but from the start, she was not afraid of him. The two returned to London two years later, got married, and had three children before moving to Blackwater where Alastair began his own resturaunt. Shannon, having gained enough money, tried numerous jobs in the wizarding world and found almost none until the opportunity for the Ministry of Magic in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office presented itself. She took the job as they were getting tight on money once again.

Shortly after Serenity's sixth birthday, Alex found his younger sister in the floor having some sort of fit and drooling, muttering in a strange language over and over. Immediately took her to his mother who swiftly returned to the library, shut the book with a nasty curse, and shoved it back on the very top shelf. Shannon returned to her daughter's bedside, order the family out of the room while she began muttering charms and counter-curses. Serenity had been cursed by the book which Shannon found it strange because no one else in her family, other than herself, Serenity, and an ancestor named Livian (she later discovered this history) had seen a single thing in the book. It had been passed down through her mother's side of the family since then without a clue of what it was other than a "dangerous book" for those, Shannon could only guess, with a pure heart. The Witch Doctor who had helped her had died since then and the truth of her mother's death had been uncovered during her sixth year: her mother's life was payment in exchange for Shannon's cure.

In order to recover her daughter back to her original state, Shannon had to do an extensive amount of research which took nearly eight months of Serenity's life. At last, Shannon found her answer and sought out a very dark wizard, a Necromancer named Vladimir Cross who performed a ritual in order to speak with the dead African Witch Doctor. Once he got the cure, he wrote it down and handed it to Shannon. Like herself, Serenity was brought out of her "seizure" by the cure, but she has not fully recovered and she doesn't remember a single thing other than the writing.

She has owed this Vladimir Cross a great deal since then and paying him back has got her into all sorts of trouble with a very nasty circle of dark witches and wizards, though she has done her very best to hide the truth from her family in case they decided to ensure any kind of payment. Every time she receives word that they are to pay a visit, she immediately finds a last-minute excuse to get her entire family out of the house be it a Quidditch game or "tracking down a jinxed teaset" all the way to Tokyo, Japan while taking her family "on vacation".

What is your job description? How do you go about your job?

Shannon works in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement: Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office. She's not the head of staff, but she's been applying for it for nearly 3 years now. The job itself requires her to track down Muggle artifacts that have been enchanted and get them out of the hands of Muggles in order to keep the wizarding world a secret. Many times, Shannon will (in the eyes of her co-workers) go too far and not only confiscate the enchanted artifacts, but also swipe the memories of the muggles before the Obliviator Squad can get there. She has also tracked down specific objects and chased them all over the world, but she mostly does that because she has the impulsive desire to travel. Many of her co-workers have actually suggested she apply for a position in the Department of International Cooperation--if only to get her out of their own department so the other Heads will quit breathing down their necks about it.

How did you get your current job? How does your past and abilities justify your current position?:[/b]

Once Shannon returned to London with her husband who had decided to open his own resturaunt, she tried numerous jobs. For six months, she was a waitress at The Leaky Cauldron, she organized books for a wizarding bookstore in Diagon Alley (one lesser known than Flourish and Blotts), sang in an underground wizarding band called The Sirens of Manchester for three months until the other two women started quarreling over an underage boy, and finally tried out as Keeper for the Quidditch Team the Holyhead Harpies which failed because she fell off her broom clumsily and the chaser scored--numerous times. There was finally an ad at St. Mungo's where she applied to be a healer, but they decided she was more Ministry material and informed her of an opening. Originally, Shannon aimed for the Department of International Magical Cooperation, but they were in dire need of her muggle experience in the MoMA Office, so she took the job as her family was getting tight on money.

Shannon, being married to a Muggle and having frequent contact with the muggle world, was well-suited for a position. She also lived on her own in the muggle world for a little over two years in order for her to obtain money and so her knowledge of the muggle world is rather vast. Whereas many wizards in the MoMA Office are unaware of how some muggle devices are actually supposed to work, Shannon can easily pinpoint what's wrong with it. She's also excellent at memory charms and persuading people to do things (such as handing over a 367,512.62£ tea set bought at an auction) that get the job done faster and more efficiently than most wizards.


Sum up your character in one paragraph: She's quirky and spontaneous with a lot of childish qualities, but she is also very mature and serious when it is required of her. The woman gets stressed out easily and many times over-dramatizes or misinterprets situations like finances or people. While she is impatient, she has improved quite a bit over the years because she's not as hot-tempered and impatient as she was when she was younger. Her kids meaning everything to her, her husband is her hero, and she is doing her best to keep up with all of them and change for the better. What she doesn't realize is that she's already changed and grown-up, something that she fears because she's afraid of being a bad or insufficient person. Her dreams of traveling and becoming famous have been put on hold, by her own will, because she would rather see her family close-knit and happy than have all the wealth or fame in the world. That's not to say she wouldn't deeply consider it if the occasion ever arose, but she would definitely choose her fate wisely.

Updated soon!


Updated soon!

Origins
The surname of Thornton is both of Olde English and occasionally Scottish, pre 7th century origins. It is locational and northern, being from any of the several places called Thornton in counties of Lancashire, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, or from the lands of Thornton in the Mearns, Scotland. Wherever found the name derives from the words "thorn" meaning a thorn bush or hedge, and "tun", an enclosure or settlement. In this case the word "thorn" is believed to have defensive implications, thorn hedges being deliberately grown around fortified positions both to keep would be raiders out, and the owners cattle in. The first recorded spelling of the family name was Beatrice de Thornton in 1202 under the reign of King John in Yorkshire in the "Fine Court Rolls". Beatrice was the first witch to take the name Thornton, but as centuries passed, her bloodline mingled with Muggles and thinned out.