Accepted - Tracey

Your Nickname: Naomi/Nao/Nae
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Is this a Primary or Secondary Character?: Primary

Full Character Name: Delilah Harper Young
Character Birthday & Age: November 19, 1990/18
City & Country of Birth: Ashford, Surrey, England
Pureblood, Halfblood or Muggleborn: Halfblood
House & Year: Slytherin, Seventh Year

Wand: Hawthorn, 11", phoenix feather core. Somewhat inflexible and excellent for dueling. A rather temperamental wand, much like its owner.

Physical Description: There’s no doubt that Delilah’s a relatively good-looking girl. Tall, willowy and well-proportioned, with a wild mane of wavy dark hair, she radiates a sort of cold, exotic beauty. There’s something, however, that many people find very off-putting about her – perhaps it’s the perpetual scowl on her face, or the predatory gleam in her eyes, or the way her mouth turns upwards at the first sign of trouble – so they tend to keep their distance.

True to her personality, Lilah’s features have a cold, sharp edge to them. Her face is small and angular, with cheekbones that are unusually high, given that she is ethnically half Asian (her mother is Chinese, her father, Caucasian). Her eyes, longer and narrower than the typical almond shape, can be described as catlike; she likes to wing out her eyeliner to accentuate this ( this makes her look more fierce when she’s glaring at someone, which is more often than not). The irises are light caramel brown in color. Her eyebrows are thin and quite arched, giving her a permanently angry look (though she just as easily looks smug), and her nose, small and narrow, is unremarkable. Her mouth, small and full, is naturally rather purplish in color due to poor circulation.
 
Lilah is not particularly self-conscious, but she does take measures to ensure that she always looks presentable. She’ll put makeup on in the morning – winged eyeliner and lipstick (to counter her purplish lips), no more, no less – and will occasionally make an effort to tame her thick, wavy hair, which will otherwise remain down and untouched. As for clothes, Lilah gravitates towards leather, metal studs, and the color black, not because she fancies herself a goth or anything like that, but because she feels most comfortable in that particular style. Her favorite accessory, however, is the cigarette – she picked the habit up in fifth year and hasn’t been able to drop it since.

Personality Description: “It is better to be feared than loved.”

It’s an understatement (akin to claiming that dragons don’t make good pets) to say that Lilah isn’t a people person. Rude, sanctimonious, and slightly rough around the edges, Lilah won’t pay anyone an ounce of mind unless he or she meets her very stringent standards. No, she’s not a blood purist, and doesn’t necessarily judge people based on wealth or social status. Simply put, she won’t talk to people who bore her (which is about 99.9% of the students at Hogwarts) or those who don’t possess ample intelligence (these people also tend to fall under the “boring” category, though “obnoxious prats” are in their own category). One could say that she stands on a pedestal and considers the majority of her peers so inferior to herself that they are irrelevant.

There is, perhaps, a reason for her superiority complex. Though she is neither rich nor pureblooded, Delilah is a highly intelligent and calculating individual. Extremely perceptive, she sees more than most people – or so she believes. For these reasons, Lilah is confident to the point of being arrogant.

That being said, she’s also incredibly lazy. Though she possesses a healthy dose of cunning, her ambition is nearly nonexistent. It’s as if her future is of no concern of hers. She’s also prone to cheating – though brave, she is not noble, and will take shortcuts whenever she is given the chance. This irks her strict, pushy, and overachieving parents to no end – but her rebelliousness stems from their suppressive tendencies, which affected her significantly when she was a child. One could say that she simply snapped and had enough of the “punishments” doled out whenever her grades fell below the E level.

Outspoken, blunt, and disturbingly honest, Lilah isn’t afraid to speak her mind. She feels strongly about certain issues – namely, blood purism and werewolf equality – and obstinately refuses to back down, even if it means getting herself in trouble (she does this quite often). Though her mouth is firmly shut in most social situations, Lilah has a lot to say about the things she truly cares about. She is, however, stubborn and completely intolerant of others’ opinions (all but her own are “stupid” and “juvenile”), and is quick to anger. Aggressive and competitive, she’s known to get into fights of the magical, physical, and verbal variety.

 Delilah is highly mistrustful. She finds it difficult to maintain healthy relationships, and is prone to making enemies many times more quickly than friends. She tends to prefer being alone much of the time; to her, more often than not, even a small group of people can be excessively bothersome. Romance is absolutely out of the question – Lilah has no qualms about hooking up, but the idea of dating is nonexistent in her mind. Cynical, sarcastic, and pessimistic, Lilah doesn’t believe in “love”.

Surprisingly, Lilah is loyal to the bone to the fair few who have managed to gain her trust and friendship. She’ll fight tooth and nail for those she cares about, even if it means putting herself at risk in the process. Even her sense of humor (biting and cruel though it is) is brought out occasionally, though it is hidden somewhere deep, deep inside. Around people she likes, Lilah isn’t as hideous, personality-wise, as everyone seems to think. These people – her true friends – bring out the humanity in her.

History: From the beginning, Delilah Young was pushed, prodded, and steered towards perfection. Everything was expected of her and her brother from her parents: perfect grades, perfect friends, and perfect behavior.

Of course, Linda (née Li) and Stanford Young suffered from a lot of setbacks over the course of their supposed-to-be-perfect lives. They were both Muggleborns from humble, unremarkable families who always strived to be more than they ever could be. Linda, who’d wanted to be a curse-breaker for Gringotts, had ended up bombing her NEWTs, forced instead to remain forever in a Ministry cubicle in a small branch of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Stanford, having the intelligence necessary to catapult himself to a top-level Ministry job, lost his nerve and was also shunted over to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. It was there that they met – and bonded over their various disappointments.

It had been decided from the moment they had gotten married that both of their children (they’d had the number planned out already – one was too little, and having too many would mean that they’d have at least one failure, which wasn’t acceptable) would be perfect. Delilah’s older brother Jeremy fell into his role from birth. Delilah, however, had been willful from the start. Something about her hadn’t been quite right – she wasn’t tame enough, wasn’t hard-working enough, wasn’t ambitious enough. She was smart – probably a tad smarter than her brother, actually – so achievements could be forced out of her.

As she got older, though, it became harder and harder. She had gotten progressively nastier since birth, but fifth year was the boiling point. Sick of the Howlers over dinner and the constantly revoked privileges (“no Hogsmeade for you, selfish girl!”), she’d snapped. She considered dropping out of school, but there wasn’t much a sixteen-year-old girl could do on her own. She’d decided to stick it out, and by then, her parents had essentially given up, too. They’d house her until she was done with school, then she’d be out of their sight, forever! They had one perfect child, and that was already enough.

In school, Lilah had never been the popular girl. Too smug and self-righteous for the common population, with a sharp tongue and a nasty disposition, she was adept at making enemies and terrible at making friends. She got into fights often, and made many near misses when it came to punishments. Come sixth year, though, she had found a small group of companions that she would damn well give her life for. They are the reason she has managed to stick it out so far – and now that she’s entering her seventh year, she doesn’t have much longer left to go until she can finally break away like she’s always wanted to.

How Do You Fit Into Your House?: To be honest, Lilah doesn’t fit flawlessly into any of the four houses. She’s brave but not noble, loyal but not hard-working, smart but not studious, and cunning but not ambitious. At the end of the day, however, she’s Slytherin to the core – her personality meshes better with those in that house than any other. And, to be honest, only those in Slytherin have the mettle to tolerate her – she’d eat all the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws alive, and no Gryffindor would respect her for her tendency to cheat and cut corners.

Writing Sample: [This takes place in Lilah’s fourth year – I wanted to touch on Lilah’s relationship with her brother, and possibly give more insight into Lilah’s personality (as it was three years ago).]

The library was a lifeless and soul-sucking sort of place, full of dusty books, disagreeable smells, and (more often than not) ugly, spiritless people. Delilah loathed the place with a passion; it reminded her of so many things she hated. Her parents, for one, had always been very bookish people, and she wasn’t exactly on the best terms with them for a moment. And books – well, she certainly wasn’t too fond of books. Their very smell reminded her of her childhood, which she was very, very glad to be leaving behind. Delilah shuddered involuntarily…being force-fed volumes and volumes of magic theory while all the other children were riding their stupid brooms around the countryside had not reflected well on her…

So she avoided the library as much as was humanly possible. Today, however, was kind of special. She’d been feeling all kinds of antsy lately – not because Delilah was a particularly flighty person by nature, but because she felt kind of…caged. Her latest sub-par grade (an A in Potions, which really wasn’t that bad) had provoked a fresh wave of ire from the ‘rents, and they had punished her as they saw fit…by revoking her Hogsmeade privileges. This was, naturally, both extremely annoying and embarrassing for her at the same time; playing Exploding Snap with the neighboring prankster-slash-delinquent wasn’t exactly her idea of fun (and yet he still kept asking).

As much as it pained her to ask for help, her situation was kind of dire. She would never reveal such weakness in front of anyone but her brother, who already knew that she was an extremely messed up individual (she was sure that her peers were aware of it, too, but there was no need to embarrass herself further). Her relationship with Jeremy was surprisingly healthy under the circumstances. He was the very apple of their parents’ eye, the definition of perfection, and the very antithesis of what Lilah wanted to be, but he was still her brother, and she respected him. Needless to say, he could be a meaningless prat sometimes, and they had their fair share of nasty arguments, but she knew she could count on him. She couldn’t say that for anyone else, really.

 “Jer, I need your help,” she said abruptly, practically materializing in front of his table in her hurry to get to him. “It’s the ‘rents again, you know it always is…”

Sum up your character in one paragraph: Cold, outspoken, and sanctimonious, with little regard for social conventions and politeness, Lilah tends to intimidate and alienate those around her. By no means a social person, she possesses a sharp tongue and an unbreakable superiority complex. She’s not too fond of people in general, and people generally feel the same way about her. Lilah is, however, surprisingly loyal to the few who have managed to gain her trust and respect, and is, despite her lack of regard for those below her station, a great friend.